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LETTERS
OF LONG AGO

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LETTERS OF LONG AGO

BY

AGNES JUST REID

ILLUSTRATED BY

MABEL BENNETT

4 110 84

MCMXXIII

THE CAXTON PRINTERS, LTD.

CALDWELL, IDAHO

NAMPA PUBLIC LIBRARY

7

^

Designed, Printed and Bound by

The CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd.

Caldwell, Idaho

27256

To My Mother

Whose life motto has been :

"Do Unto Your Children as You Wish Your Parents
Had Done Unto You."

This book is affectionately dedicated by

HER DAUGHTER

4<?46S

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Wedding 9

The House Beautiful 13

A Son Is Born - 17

Unexpected Visitors 21

A Terpsichorean Episode 25

Hope Turns to Despair : 29

The Coming of the Peacemaker 33

Sickness Comes in the Wilderness..... 37

Another Son 41

The Red Man's War-Whoop 45

A New Friend 51

An Addition to the House and to

the Family 55

The Witness Stand 59

The Coming of the Londoners 65

A Tragedy 69

A Neighborhood Wedding 73

When Death Comes 77

Another Little Grave 83

The First Circus 87

Another Little Sister 91

What Civilization Means 95

A Little Sister 99

The Big House 103

An Irrigation Project 107

Presto Ill

Counting My Blessings 115

THE WEDDING

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

December 2, 1870.
My Dear Father :

T AM not sure you will approve of the step I have
•*- taken, but I hope you will. I was married on the
ninth of last month to a young man I had become
acquainted with at the home of my aunt. Perhaps it
was not the sensible thing to do, but you see, since
my divorce two years ago I have been just sort of
drifting. I left good friends and good opportunities
in Montana to come here to my nearest of kin, think-
ing I would be more contented, but I found the work
with aunt very hard and the conditions, in general,
harder than the work. You disapproved of my going
on the stage, and after the baby came I was thank-
ful that you had. For babies cry for a home with
the first breath they draw. So my baby, who is be-
coming quite a lad, is to have a home, built by a step-
father, but a home for all of that.

We had a queer wedding journey. I wish some of
your friends there in that great city of London might
have seen us and smiled, I was sitting in the covered
wagon with my little boy, while the prospective

10 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

bridegroom trudged along in the dust and sand try-
ing to get two yoke of oxen over the ground fast
enough to reach a justice of the peace before we were
overtaken by winter. They are not record-breaking
cattle, but they are as good as any in the valley, even
though they did consume eight days in making the
trip to Malad.

The journey was not unpleasant, for the weather
was fine, as you well know, it usually is here in the
fall. At night the air would be crisp and cool, but
my good comrade tied the cover down tightly over
the wagon, so my boy and I were safe and snug while
he stood guard over us. The country is full of wolves
and Indians, but neither seem at all hostile toward
us. As you know, the greatest fear the traveler en-
tertains is that his oxen may stray away.

That reminds me that I have not told you why we
are starting our new home on the Blackfoot river.
Nels has been doing some freighting during the time
I had known him and once when the cattle slipped
away from him during the night, they came to this
very spot. The stage road is about six miles from
here, so he soon followed them and found a wonder-
ful little valley divided from the Snake River Valley
by a strip of bench land and not visible from the
stage line.

From that day he has carried a vision with him, a
vision of the home that we are founding today. Oh,
father, it is a blfak looking place to think of spend-
ing one's life in, but we have pure water, fresh air,
fish and game in abundance, and room, room, any
amount of it.

Our capital in stock was $125. and it took most
of it to buy a cook stove and lumber for a floor in the
cabin that is to be. We brought up some freight for

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 11

uncle and received in payment a small amount of
flour, but I think enough to last through the winter.
And we have, my dear father, your parting gift to
me, three cows. Uncle kept the increase for the
trouble they had been to him, but we have the cows
and are truly grateful to you. Don't worry about us.
We are both young and both able and willing to
work, so that perseverance is all we need. Besides,
this is luxury compared with the hard times in Utah
some years back. We all came through even that,
and you were always cheerful, giving your shares to
mother and to us children and going without your-
self.

Poor, mother, how she must have suffered! She
could not stand the way of the West, for she had
been accustomed to comforts. With me it is dif-
ferent, I have no recollection of anything but priva-
tion, and as long as I can see the sun rise I am going
to have courage,but Oh, do not ask me to come to you.
That dreadful, sickening stretch of water lies be-
tween us, and that dreadful London fog will be there
to greet me, so I cannot come. How I wish you had
stayed with me, since mother was never permitted to
reach her beloved England anyway, but we might
have blamed ourselves if you had not made the
effort.

There are times, though, when I need you so. I
need your hopeful philosophy, your chronic content.
I shall grow old gladly if I can, but hope to attain
some measure of your contentment. Don't worry
about me, father, there will be no drunkenness in
this marriage, and therefore no divorce. Sometimes
I feel uneasy because of my lack of real, all forgiving-
love that guided my other marriage, but again I won-
der what that great love gave me but misery. There

12 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

is no deception, for my husband knows that I do not
care as I should, but he, foolish boy, thinks that he
cares enough for both of us. I call him a boy, though
he is two years older, but he looks so very youthful.
And a marriage, a divorce and a son make me feel
very ancient.

I wish I could put on paper some of the young-
ster's attempts at conversation. It would do your
heart good, He calls his step-father "Nee," the best
he can do for Nels. Anyway, you can rest assured
that he is a good healthy, normal youngster. What-
ever frailties were brought from the old country to
shorten the lives of your children has been weeded
out in this generation.

With our best love,

Your Emma.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

April 11, 1871.
My dear Father:

i^|UR first winter has been a very pleasant one.
" Very little snow and an early "breaking up." 1
rather feared a winter like the one we spent in
Soda Springs and had that been the case I could not
have had your letter for several weeks yet, as we
have to go twenty miles for even the possibility of a
letter and it often ends in just a possibility, for the
service is very uncertain. The mail is carried by the
stage drivers and left at the station that seems most
convenient.

How glad I am that you remember Nels from old
Soda Springs days, and were favorably impressed by
his worthiness. I did not mention the fact that he
had lived there, thinking that you, like myself, would
be unable to remember him. Oh, there was nothing
for us girls to see and remember those days but blue
coats and brass buttons ! Why at the mature age of
15, when I married my soldier boy, I regarded a half-
grown Danish lad as quite beneath my notice. Yet,
that is what my husband of today was then, and the
worst of it is that he remembers me perfectly in all
my complacency.

14 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

Our first "house" is not one that would be likely
to lure Queen Victoria from her throne, but it is
ours, because we have made it with the simple mater-
ials that God left strewn around here for us. It is
only a hole in the ground, it differs from the habita-
tions of the lesser animals, however, in the flatness
of its walls and the squareness of its corners. It has
no windows, but is lighted by a tallow dip and the
cheerful fire on the hearth. We feel very wealthy
because of our cook stove. You and I, father, lived
and laughed in the days of the open fire. So with
the stove to furnish us heat and a splendid heavy
buffalo skin to keep the cold from coming in the
opening that we use for a door, we have kept com-
fortable.

For furniture, well, first we have a wonderful bed-
stead that Nels has made. Four legs made from a
pine pole, with holes bored in them to put in side
pieces, which are also made of pine poles. Then
down the sides are many holes bored and through
them are run strips of cowhide, laced back and forth,
making springs. For mattress we have a tick filled
with cured bunch-grass, that was cut with a scythe
while the weather was warm. We have one chair,
only one that I brought with me from Montana, and
a table of rough pine boards that was given to us by
a man at Fort Hall. We each had bedding and our
dishes are so few I hate to enumerate.

Things will be better, though, even in another
year, for we have many plans for building and im-
proving, but there is no work that will bring in
anything. Last year it was different, there was
work for everyone while they were building the fort
eleven miles from here. Aunt and I made good
money. I baked bread for thirty-five men, which

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 15

meant thirty-five loaves, in a little number seven
stove. That alone was quite a day's work, but they
paid me either five cents a loaf or pound for pound
of flour. That is, when I used a pound of flour for
soldier bread I put a pound aside for ourselves and
in the course of the summer it grew into a mighty
pile. Besides this, Aunt and I together cooked for
six of the mechanics, milked twenty cows and sold
butter and milk to the soldiers, did washing and any-
thing that would bring in money. I used to be
dreadfully tired, but it was not so bad, and how I
wish now that we had some of the work and some of
the pay, it would help so much in the building of
another house.

We take the New York Sun and Peterson's Maga-
zine. The stories of Frances Hodgson are running
in the magazine and I like them so much. Mr. Shoe-
maker is also very kind to loan us reading matter
and he has a better supply than anyone. They live
a little more than two miles down the river, but she
is in such poor health that she seldom gets out of the
house. Speaking of reading, I must tell you that
Nels and I had one of our first quarrels over Shakes-
peare. He has his complete works in the cheapest
edition obtainable and he reads and reads until some-
times he forgets to carry a bucket of water. Well, I
felt very much abused and told him so. I know now
that I was wicked, for I should be glad that he can
be entertained in that manner. I've seen all of his
best plays again and again, but I will not give my
poor husband time to even read them. Women are
surely funny folks.

We shall plant a small garden, very small though,
for the problem of irrigation is the next one. We
have the land and we have the water, but the next

16 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

thing is to bring them together. This year the gar-
den will be a hand-made affair, watered with a
bucket.

The spring has brought some activities of the kind
peculiar to frontier localities. An occasional trapper
drops in on his way to a summer job or to market
the furs from his winter's catch. How we welcome
such company! Some of these fellows have good
educations and have drifted here from the states,
where everything is civilized. We listen to them
eagerly, beg them to remain longer to share our
primitive hospitalities and sigh when they pass on.

Freddie sends you a big hug and wishes you would
come and see us. I join in the wish, but I know that
you will enjoy being quiet for a few years after the
travel and hardship of the past.

With my best love,

Emma.

A SON IS BORN

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

November 15, 1871.
My Dear Father:

A NOTHER little grandson for you before you have
"■ ever seen the first one. Born October 26th to a
most disappointed mother. I did so want him to be
a girl. I guess everyone wants the first born to be
a son but after that surely one should be allowed "a
little sister." So I had my plans all laid that way,
without giving a thought to his father's interest in
the matter, and poor little rascal, I hardly forgave
him until he was three days old. Then his father
said very gallantly, and I knew truthfully, as well,
that he had always wanted him to be a boy, so I sup-
pose the poor little chap will feel at least half wel-
come. His coming was a marvel, and still is. I con-
fess I had dreaded it, with a dread that every mother
must feel in repeating the experience of child-bear-
ing. I could only think that another birth would
mean another pitiful struggle of days' duration, fol-

18 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

lowed by months of weakness, as it had been before.
Then at the eleventh hour my aunt refused to be
with me because of some little differences Nels had
had with her two boys. The world did not look very
bright just at that point in our history. However,
my good Nettie offered to leave her husband to do
his own housekeeping to help us, and three days
after she came little Jimmie was born. Born with
so little travail that I scarcely had time to know I
was in labor until I heard his cry. Then Nettie, dear
tender hearted Nettie, our only help, broke down
and could not do a thing for either of us. So Nels
was our surgeon and I my own nurse. They brought
me the clothes and the water and I washed and
dressed my own child just as a Bannock squaw would
have done. In fact, I think I am going back to them.
I feel each day that I am becoming less and less
civilized and more and more a part of the wild waste
around me. I have lived in the open much during
the summer, riding and driving a great deal. Why,
only a little more than a month before my confine-
ment, Nels and I went fishing up the river on horse-
back and on the way home I was a little behind and
as Nels rounded a bend in the river and went out of
sight, my horse became frightened and ran to over-
take him. I was carrying my fish pole and it fright-
ened me so I did not ride any more.

When baby was three days old Nettie had to go
home so I got up and helped with the work, then
when he was only ten Nels had to go for our winter
supplies so that left me with the milking, just one
cow now, and wood carrying. I guess I rather over-
did the thing, for I took quite sick during his ab-
sence and I don't know just how I could have man-
aged, but "Old Wood," one of our bachelor friends,

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 19

happened in and found me, so he came regularly
after that until Nels got back.

I must not forget to tell you that we have a new
house, a cabin twelve by fourteen, and all of our
costly (?) furnishings from the dugout are moved
into it. Nels worked several days for a man at the
stage station at $1.50 per day, and immediately paid
a neighbor who lives less than a mile up the river,
the same amount to help him build the cabin. We
have sold the two yoke of oxen, too, and have a pony
team. The oxen brought four hundred dollars.

During the early spring Nels had a very small
contract for a very small irrigating system. He
brought water from Willow Creek, a distance of two
miles, to Eagle Rock, where the Andersons have a
store and toll bridge. He did it all with a shovel and
a good deal in the spirit of a joke, still they paid him
one hundred dollars, and that looks like a fortune to
us. He is quite an expert with a shovel and I think
has an unusual gift in recognizing water ways and
water resources.

We drive and ride often on the bench land that
gives us a splendid view of the Snake River valley,
and he never fails to tell me that sometime there will
be a railroad through the country. He says in ten
years, but it seems to me it would be a very foolish
railroad indeed that would come into this endless
stretch of sand and sage-brush.

Can you fancy you see your little grandson num-
ber two, nestled here in the hollow of my arm as I
write? He is one of the two finest boys in the world
and how I wish you were here to help me love them.
What a shame that you who love little ones so should
be deprived of enjoying these. Oh, if you could just
reach out your hand and touch the soft little black

20 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

hair that covers this baby head. He has only a scan-
ty wardrobe and every day is wash day at our house,
but he is normal and healthy, so I am content.

With love from your three,

Emma.

UNEXPECTED VISITORS.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

May 15th, 1872.
My Dear Father:

A NOTHER spring has come to us and brought
•^-with it another of your letters. Surely I shall
never be discouraged with such a father to send mes-
sages of cheer. The winter passed rather uneventful-
ly as I am learning they usually do on Idaho ranches,
but we all kept well and therefore, happy. Our little
new baby never saw a white woman for a stretch of
five months. He did not seem to mind it however,
and when the first mild days came I carried him in
my apron down to see my aunt where she and uncle
were building fence, and he screamed with terror
at the sight of a strange woman. I hate to burden
you with these things, but aunt has never been to see
me and I felt she must see the baby for she is the
nearest to you that I have, but Oh, so different !

The winter was unenventful but the spring, the
spring has been wonderful! We have had guests,
distinguished guests from the big world itself. You
see there is a land to the north of us, perhaps a hun-
dred miles, that is considered marvelous for its
scenic possibilities and the government is sending a
party of surveyors, chemists, etc., to pass judgment
with a view to setting it aside for a national park.

22 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

Well, this party happened to stop at our little cabin.
There were representatives from all of the big east-
ern colleges, and then besides, there were the Moran
brothers. I think you must have heard of Thomas
Moran even as far away as England, for he is a
wonderful nature artist. And his brother John is
what I have heard you speak of as a "book maker/'
He writes magazine articles. And these two remark-
able men were interested in us and in our way of
living. Think of it, father! I took them into the
cellar where I had been churning to give them a
drink of fresh butter-milk and while they drank
and enjoyed it, I was smoothing the rolls of butter
with my cedar paddle that Nels had whittled out for
me with his pocket knife. I noticed the artist man
paying special attention to the process and finally
he ventured rather apologetically: "Mrs. Just,
would you mind telling me what you varnish your
rolls of butter with that gives them such a glossy
appearance ?" I thought the man was making fun of
me, or sport of me as you would express it, but I
looked into his face and saw that is was all candor.
That is one of the happiest experiences of my life for
that man who knows everything to be ignorant in the
lines that I know so well. I tried to make him under-
stand that the smooth paddle and the fresh butter
were all sufficient but I think he is still rather be-
wildered. And do you know, since that day, the art
of butter making has taken on a new dignity. I
always did like to do it, but now my cedar paddle
keeps singing to me with every stroke, "Even Thom-
as Moran cannot do this, Thomas Moran cannot do
this," and before I know it the butter is all finished
and I am ready to sing a different song to the wash
board.

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 23

Yes, I am doing washing now and earning money
so I have every reason to be happy. There are well
to do southern families at Eagle Rock, eighteen miles
away, and Nels drives there with the pony team and
brings their washing for me to do. It is not hard
and they appreciate having me do it for they have
always had colored folks to wait on them and are
very inexperienced and helpless. I thank you father
for bringing me to the wilderness when I was young
enough so that I have been able to grow up useful.
I am surely sorry for people that are not able to help
in the world's work when there is so much of it to
be done. The neighbors, the few scattered ones we
have, are prone to criticize the way we get along,
they say I make the living and a few such unkind
things, but there is no work for Nels without he goes
away from home and I will do anything rather than
have him go. I know how it looks to them, but I
want you to understand that I am not complaining.
Nels has faults, but indolence is not among them.
He is really so very energetic that the task of "wait-
ing for something to turn up" makes him quite ir-
ritable. I think, take it all around, though, that we
are as happy as most people and the children are
surely a great comfort to us both.

With our best love,

Emma.

A TERPSICHOREAN EPISODE

Dear Father :

OUR washerwoman has be-
come a slave to frivolities
no doubt the children
will be going hungry in
consequence. Yes, I have
really been some place
and that some place was a
dance. The officers at Ft.
Hall gave a general invi-
tation to the settlers for
a radius of sixty miles to
come and make merry with the people at the post. I
had very little hopes of going, for my husband cares
not a thing for anything of that nature, but all the
time I kept wanting to go, yet dreading to urge it.
During the afternoon of the eventful day, a young
couple who live at the stage station drove over and
wanted me to go with them. My heart was in my
throat because of my eagerness to go and my dread
that Nels would be displeased with my going. Final-
ly he came in and said with all the kindness in the
world: "Emma, I know you want to go to that
dance, go right along with these people and I will
stay with the children but be home early." Oh, how
happy I was! I knew that everyone in the valley
would be there and such a celebration it would be!
I had but one dress that was the least bit respect-
able and it was only calico, but it was nicely starched
and ironed and being sort of a buff color, I thought,
would be just the thing for evening wear. The truth

26 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

is Father, it did not matter much what I had to
wear, just so I could go. So all went lovely. The music
was good and everyone was deligted to see everyone
else, so we talked and danced, then talked and danced
some more. I don't believe there were more than
twenty women there and it took them all to fill the
floor, they ranged in ages from twelve to sixty, but
there were no wall flowers. After midnight, I began
to get anxious to start home, but I could see that it
was plainly an all-night affair. The only prepara-
tion on the part of the man that h&d so kindly
taken me was, he was getting too drunk to drive.
At two I was on the floor in a quadrille, when a hand
touched my shoulder and my husband was saying:
"Emma your baby wants you." I vanished like
Cinderella herself might have done. Someone took
my place in the set and we were on our way without
bidding anyone goodby, without thanking any host,
just on our way back to the baby. Our progress
through the night was not rapid, for Nels had ridden
a mule, that being the only animal kept up. I rode
him and Nels walked along side of me. As we came
over the last rise and found the cabin all safe that
held our precious boys, dawn was breaking in the
east. We had had a night of it. My husband's father
has been with us all during this summer and he
has built an addition to our house. A nice little
"dobie" bedroom on the south end. Why, we feel
quite aristocratic, for we no longer sleep in the
room where we do our cooking.

We have had one unpleasant experience since I
wrote last. Nels and his father had been cutting
hay on the other side of the river and wanted to haul
it over and stack it. The water was quite high and
the crossing none too safe, so as Nels attempted to

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 27

ford, one of the horses saw fit to balk right in mid-
stream. He could see that the delay was going to
be his undoing, so he jumped for his life and let a
goodly portion of our earthly possessions float down
the river. He managed to get out on the home side
of the stream and came rushing to the house, hatless
and dripping. "Well, here I am, Sis, but the team
and wagon are gone to hell," is the way he greeted
me. Needless to say, my heart was too full of
thanksgiving to spend much time in useless regrets,
for little as we could afford such a loss, how much
less able we'd have been to lose him. It was not such
a complete loss, anyway, for I went back with him
and we found the entire outfit lodged. One horse
was drowned, but the other had kept itself up on the
dead one, so we rescued one horse and most of the
wagon and harness. That evening I returned the
scare he had given me with interest. We had been
working on the other side of the river and Nels told
me to come to the foot log and wait for them to help
me across. It was growing late and there were the
cows to milk and supper to get, so I decided in the
face of the disasters o£ the morning, it would be easy
for me to cross the foot log. The foot log, however,
was scarcely more than a pole and one end of it
splashed down into the same surging water that had
taken our team, but my courage was up. I took the
baby first and told Freddie if we fell in he must wait
there until his Dad came. When I landed the first
time I took the baby well back so he could not creep
to the edge and was soon back with the big boy. I
went merrily home and had supper ready when Nels
came in, white and ready to faint with fright.
"Don't ever do that fool trick again," was about all
he could say, for it had been a day of trials for him.

28 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

Never had it occured to me that he would be fright-
ened. I thought I was doing only my duty, but I
know that the foot log is almost unsafe for a man
and I am usually rather cowardly about water, as
you will remember. Maybe I shall try the ocean
next if you do not come to me.

I hope you are as well as this leaves us.

With love from,

Emma.

HOPE TURNS TO DESPAIR

My Dear Father:

rpHE months have passed and I have neglected you.
■■" Neglected writing to you, but 0, never neglected
thinking of you ! Day after day thinking of you and
praying that in some way your love for me will guide
me aright. I have tried to write cheerfully to you,
but if something should happen to me before we meet
again, I should like to feel that you understood.
Sometimes in the months just past I have felt that
I might lose my mind, or even lose myself in the
friendly river that I once feared. There must have
been a growing dissatisfaction somewhere concealed
in my heart almost from the time of our marriage.
You remember, I told you it was not through senti-
ment that I married Nels but because I considered
it the sensible thing to do. Think of it father ! Think
of trying to found a home without that prime essen-
tial, love. Of course I tried to be reasonable and
think that romance, for me, was a thing of the past.
I tried to believe that my love for Freddie's father
was the only love that was ever to come into my
life, but I failed to take into consideration that I was
only twenty-one years old, so I cast my lot in the
wilderness with a man for whom I could never feel
anything more sacred than respect.

30 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

When the spring came, the third since our marri-
age, I concluded it was a hopeless task and I would
put an end to it. Yes, I was going to run away. I
had friends everywhere that would consider such a
course praiseworthy. So my plans were all laid,
even to giving up my little boy. I could not take
Jimmie from his father, so I steeled myself to leave
him as a sacrifice to the man I had wronged. I was
to go with the older boy to the nearest county seat
and secure a divorce, which is a very easy matter,
then go farther east where I have friends. I was
to leave all this barren life and go where there was
civilization and cheer. I was to go where there was
something besides hard work and where sometime
the love of my womanhood might come to me ! The
love that is called the grand passion! The love that
makes life worth while !

So I went along making my plans to go, counting
the hours until I should be free, and trying not to
look backward. Then one evening, I know not why,
perhaps you sent the guidance for which I had
prayed, but be that as it may, I told Nels all about
it. Told him just as I have told you. Poor, poor
man ! What a shame he couldn't have been spared the
suffering that I have caused him. Of course, he
acted like a madman for several days, then lapsed
into melancholy. Now, we are plodding along in the
same old way, only with the knowledge that I have
ruined all the chances for happiness that we ever
had.

I am still doing washing for diversion and it mat-
ters little how many tears drip into the suds. Our
evenings are spent in the gloomiest of glooms and
Nels often says with a sigh, "My idols are clay." It
is awful for him to have been so disappointed and it
is awful for me to have been the cause.

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 31

Now, there is to be another baby. Another one
to share our unhappy lives. I am glad for my own
sake, but what of the child!

It seems almost criminal to me, for a woman to
bear children, by a man she does not love. Yet every
day there are hundreds of babies born into homes
where there is nothing but discord. Surely the
world is nothing but discord, take it all-in-all.

Oh, father, do come back to us ! Can't you dispose
of your interests there and come back to stay ? With
your wisdom, perhaps you could straighten out some
of the tangles in our lives. It seems to me that no
lesser person could ever bring harmony into our dis-
corded lives.

The children are well and are becoming quite
good play-fellows now. Jimmie has golden curly
hair and it makes a queer contrast to his black eyes.
I thought when I began to write that there was not a
thing in life for which I was thankful, but I know,
when I speak of Jimmie, that I am glad I stayed to
be his mother.

Your unhappy*

Emma.

THE COMING OF THE PEACEMAKER.

Dear Father:

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

May 5, 1874.

A NOTHER member has been added to our house-
s-hold, another boy. This time I was not disap-
pointed with a boy, in fact, I rather rejoiced. There
are so many things some of them very unpleasant,
that boys escape by the natural order of law and
life, so henceforward boys will be very welcome.
Sometimes I think now that I never want a girl. My
own life has been so full of blunders and mistakes,
why transmit such tendencies to another genera-
tion!

Anyway the little chap is named for you and for
Uncle William, George William, and he loves his
grandfather already, though he is only a month old.
He brought a great peace with him and it has settled
over our little home with an air of permanency. I
feel more certain of our happiness now than I have
ever felt since our marriage. Values for me, seemed
all upset for a while; now they have taken their
proper places. I have ceased to long for the things
that I felt so necessary to my happiness and I am

34 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

learning to be happy with what I have. Nels, too,
seems to have been chastened by my dissatisfaction
of a year ago and is more considerate and thoughtful.

This time we were not alone to welcome the little
stranger. A woman from the stage station was with
us and it was most fortunate for I was sick several
hours and not as able to help with the baby.

My good Heneage had expected to come and stay
with me for a couple of weeks, but her brother Dick
took suddenly sick the day she had planned to come.
You remember, Dick was never a very strong look-
ing young man and he had a stubborn case of typhoid
fever. A doctor from Fort Hall waited on him and
he had the best nursing that this country affords,
but he died after suffering about three weeks.

This is the first death in the valley and it strikes
very near to us all. I did not go to the funeral for
my baby was very young, but they buried him in a
corner of his father's claim not far from the Snake
river. It seems very lonesome here to be among the
first settlers in a new country, but what must it be
to be the first buried in a new country ! I shudder to
think of it, and I hope that the song of the river
reaches the lonely spot where he sleeps.

Father, would you believe that your "washer
woman" has a wonderful new piece of furniture?
A sewing machine! Think of it! The simplest
Singer on the market and it cost $72. I told you
that I was earning money of my own by washing for
the Andersons ; well, my first earnings paid for that.
It was freighted with an ox team from Corinne to
Eagle Rock. It surely is an acquisition and my
friends come from miles around to have me sew for
them. They gladly do all of the drudgery around
the house if I will just condescend to put machine
stitching on their hems.

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 35

We also have a glove making job that seems to
have quite a fortune in it for us. The Andersons
supply us with buckskins, thread, buttons, etc., and
we make the gloves for 75 cents a pair. In this work
Nels is able to help me a great deal. He does all of
the cutting out, then I do the work with the machine
and he turns and trims them. Lastly I finish them
by hand. We often complete three pair in a day,
during our leisure, and that seems like making
money pretty fast to us. Most of it has to be done
at night after the children are in bed. We burn two
tallow candles and it almost keeps one of us occupied
keeping them "snuffed" so that they will give a good
light.

Being a "shop keeper,,, perhaps you will like to
know more of the glove industry. The skins make,
on an average, three pairs of gloves each, and they
bring from $1.50 to $2.50 per pair, the price being
regulated by the quality of the buckskin. How do
you think they would sell to your London customers ?

Sometimes I get a chance to make a pair of buck-
skin pants for a trapper or miner, they have to be
lined and are quite difficult to make, but I get $5 for
making a pair. Once I was making some for a man
that was riding with my husband and wanted to get
them done while they were away. In my eagerness,
I cut both sides for one leg, so, of course, spoiled two
fine skins — skins that did not belong to us, too.
When the man, who expected his pants to be ready
to wear said, very slurringly: "Yes, I've always
heard that a woman can throw it out of the window
with a spoon faster than a man can throw it in the
door with a shovel," I was just ready to cry real
angry tears, when Nels came to my rescue by saying :
"Never mind, Sis, we'll get two more buckskins and

36 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

you can make two more legs to go with the two you
already have." We did that and soon found sale for
the second pair, so there was nothing wasted.

The baby is waking and the cows are coming home
to be milked so my letter must be brought to a close.

With the love of your three grandsons and,

Yjour Emma.

SICKNESS COMES IN THE WILDERNESS

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

February 15, 1876.

Dear Father:

TTOW easily we may say or write "we are all well,"
•*•-■• and it seems to carry so little meaning, but
henceforward it shall always be the most meaning-
ful sentence in the language tx> me. For I have learn-
ed what it is to be unable to say it ! I have learned
what it is to watch and work and wait by the side of
a little sufferer until I was almost frantic, searching
for one ray of hope. I have learned what it is to go
night after night without closing my eyes until I
ceased to feel that sleep was a necessity. Yes,
father, I have learned a lot of things.

Early in September our little golden haired Jim-
mie was stricken with a terrible fever, something of
the nature of typhoid, yet the doctor gave it some
other unpronouncable name, and for four months he
lay, feeble, moaning, unconscious. After the first
few days he never recognized any of us, but would
open his mouth like a little bird when anyone came to

38 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

the bed. Every two hours we fed him from a spoon,
either medicine or liquid nourishment, and every
six hours bathed him.

Some days I would feel hopeful and meet the
doctor with, "Oh, he is better today, doctor," but
the doctor would look at him and shake his head.
His solemn "No change" would shatter my rising
hopes. I have never lost a child but it seems to me
that we must have suffered more than we would to
have really given him up. There was his pitiable
little skeleton ever before us, almost accusingly, as
much as to say we were not doing enough ; there was
the endless, nerveracking care of him, and there was
ever the conviction that we must lose him after all.

We had some help with the nursing. Aunt came,
and dear Heneage Garret, who was just married to
a young Southerner, forsook her husband for a few
weeks and came to us in our need. We had a woman
from Fort Hall too for a time, but four months is a
long time to worry through, and much of the time
we two were alone fighting for that precious life.
Even little Freddie has had to be enlisted as washer
woman and I shall long remember his faithfulness
in washing little garments, at the same time amus-
ing Baby Will by letting him "fish" in the tub with
a tiny pole and line.

We never really knew when the change did come,
but gradually, so gradually, he began to mend. Then,
we were able to release the doctor from his self-im-
posed contract. He had made over a hundred trips
on horseback, a distance of 22 miles, and we
poor, poverty-stricken home-builders had only one
hundred dollars to offer him for all his wonderful
services. Goodness I hope if heaven is crowded, that
all the rest of humanity will be cast out to make

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 39

room for the doctors, doctors such as this one. We
asked him his charges, and he said, were we able
to pay, five hundred dollars would be the least he
could ask, but knowing our circumstances, he wanted
nothing. Think of it, father! And yet some old
cronies will tell you that the world is getting worse
and every second man you meet is a scoundrel. I've
never found it so. We insisted, however, that he
take all we had, to prove in some measure our grati-
tude to him. I even said, "Why doctor, you have
saved our child," and he came back with "Saved
your child, no, my good woman, all my knowledge of
medicine could never have saved that child, had it
not been for your nursing and your strict observance
of my directions. Doctors could save a great many
more children if they were only blessed with mothers
like you."

So after nearly half a year, our sunny little boy
has come back to us. He learned to stand again,
and to walk the early part of this month. He has
been eating solid food, tiny strips of dry toast, piled
high to look like a great quantity, and he has grown
fat like a little baby again.

Once more we sleep through the night without
interruptions, once more we listen to three peaceful
little breathers, instead of a moan, once more we are
happy in our cabin home.

With our fondest love,

Emma,

ANOTHER SON

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

September 30, 1876.
My dear Father :

T T must be almost an toild story to you now to hear
■■■that we have another boy at our house. Anyway,
another one we have, born the sixteenth of this
month. You no doubt are keeping count and know
that he is the fourth, but do you realize that your
"Little Gal Em" has more of a family than her
mother ever had? It means a great many responsi-
bilities and a great many duties, but I still feel equal
to the task, if I could just be sure that four would be
all. Surely no mother should be called upon to wash
and cook and sew for more than four. Surely not a
mother who is called upon to do for them so early
either. Yes, again we were alone to welcome the
little mite.

I think I have told you that Mrs. Shoemaker is ail-
ing a great deal so she keeps a girl year in and year
out. She is a faithful Danish girl that would be a
substantial addition to any household and Mrs. Shoe-
maker had promised to let her come to me when I

42 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

needed her. Nels and I drove down expecting to
bring her home but the Shoemakers had suddenly
discovered that they could not spare her. Of course,
there was no time to make other arrangements, after
depending upon her until the eleventh hour, so we
came home a pretty blue pair of expectant parents.
Before morning the baby had arrived. We took care
of him just as we did little Jimmie, Nels acting as
a surgeon and I as a nurse. Sometime during the
most exciting times Nels moved the stove in from
the little shanty kitchen where we had done our
cooking during the hot weather, and had it in read-
iness for the newcomer. Poor little fellow, his com-
ing did not disturb many people, but he seems as
happy and healthy as if he were a prince and wel-
comed by a whole kingdom full of people. We have
named him Francis. I had always hoped to have a
little girl to bear my mother's name, but it has begun
to look as if we never shall, so he may have it.

You asked about school for the children. It seems
about as unattainable as the moon and I must con-
fess that I have not given it any very serious
thought. What is it the Bible says about "Sufficient
unto the day?" Each day brings so many cares that
I cannot look far into the future. Sometimes I won-
der whether we are going to be able to subdue these
conditions enough to produce the necessities of life
for our ever increasing family. Of course, we are
teaching Freddie to read in the evenings. The books
you have sent and a few given to him by friends here
are supplying endless entertainment but when I
really think of an education for them, here in the
wilderness, it frightens me.

My first work now, when I am able to work again
will be to make winter suits for three little boys.

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 43

There is no store to buy material from and no money
to buy it with, but frequently men who are traveling
through the country will leave an old pair of pants
or a badly worn shirt and from them comes a new
suit- Nearly every thing worn here is good wool
and when the old garments are washed and pressed
they look like new. I suppose the little chaps would
look very different from the ones that pass your shop
window, but I try to keep them warm in winter, cool
in summer and tidy all the year round.

The poor youngsters were the innocent cause of
their mother being foolishly offended once during
the winter. A sleigh came with bells, a most unusual
occurance, in fact I think it had never happened be-
fore since we have lived here, and the children in
their mad rush to the door fell over each other or
over the chairs. Anyway when the occupant of the
sleigh came in they were all crying. He remarked
very pleasantly that he always found when a strang-
er stopped at a ranch house, there was a kid crying
in every corner. I answered him very sharply that
we only had three children so there was not one in
every corner. I hope he does not come this way
again, partly because I did not like his impertinence,
and partly because I do not want him to know that
there is one in every corner now.

There seems to be a little dissatisfaction among
the Indians and it worries the settlers. Up to the
present they have never shown anything but the
most friendly attitude, but we hear vague rumors of
uprisings among the tribes to the north of us and we
fear it may extend to this reservation any time. I
have never feared them because of our experiences
with them that winter at Soda Springs. They might
so easily have wiped out that little handful of us,

44 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

had they cared to do so, I think in most cases, the
White folks are at fault when any difficulties arise.
However, we are not always our "brother's keeper",
else we would surely try to keep him from doing
imprudent things with regard to the Indians, and
thus be assured of their good will.

We have all been exceptionally well during the
summer and hope when your precious letter reaches
us it will bring as good tidings from you.

With love from all,

Emma.

THE RED MAN'S WAR-WHOOP.

Dear Father :

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

September 14, 1877.

T^ELL me, father, is it a mark of insanity for one
■*■ to wish to take his own life? My husband says it
is, but I insist that it is perfectly sensible, so we shall
expect you to cast the deciding vote. I have been on
the point of killing my children and myself that we
might be spared a more terrible fate, and before you
agree with Nels that my mind is becoming unbal-
anced, I want you to know how logical it all appears
to me. I think I must have mentioned our fear of
an Indian uprising when I wrote last. Well, with the
coming of spring our worst fears were confirmed
and the summer has been a season of terror. I often
wonder if some of the newspaper reports reach even

46 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

to where you are and if you picture us, your very
own, being burned to death in the little cabin as you
read of a lonely habitation being destroyed.

The Nez Perces tribes to the north of us with
Chief Joseph as leader has been doing depradations
of all descriptions, and each time we hear, coming
nearer and nearer to us. Albert Lyon, whom you
remember from Soda Springs days, was captured by
them out in the Birch Creek country, which is only
a hundred miles from here, and he barely escaped
with his life. He was freighting with Green's outfit
and when the Indians came upon them they took
possession of the wagons and drivers but assured
them that they meant no harm, just wanted to detain
them so that they could not give the alarm. After
being held several days, Lyon managed to give them
the slip by dropping into the wash then following
down the bed of the stream, and finally reached a
cabin in time to save himself from a death of starva-
tion. His fellow travelers were all killed and the
wagons burned before the savages moved camp.
Some, who wish to promote a Christian attitude to-
ward the red man, insist that it was because Lyon
betrayed the trust, but it seems to me he simply
saved his own scalp.

But to return to my own story. Nels has been
putting up hay at Fort Hall the greater part of the
summer, often staying away over night. Brooding
as I did, I could not sleep when alone and I dared not
make a light for it would only serve as a target for
some stealthy redskin, so all night my imagination
ran riot. I would see through the windows bushes
and stumps that were familiar to me by daylight, but
by night they took the form of a crouching savage,
of which there were a million more just behind the

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 47

shadows, surrounding the cabin. Night after night
I spent in that way, and day after day I milked the
cows and made the butter with my head hidden
away in an old slat sunbonnet, lest the children
might discover my changing expressions.

When Nels came home he brought papers with
vivid descriptions of the path of terror the Indians
were leaving in their wake and I felt positive that it
was only a matter of time until they would join our
own tribes here and complete the destruction of the
white race in southern Idaho.

The fall days began to come on when a heavy haze
hung over everything, sometimes poetically called
"Indian Summer," but that one word has taken the
poetry out of everything for me this summer. Nels
had not been home for several days and the despera-
tion of continued loneliness was upon me, when to-
ward evening the children came rushing in from
their play to say there was a fire on the hill south of
us. I tried to assure them that is was just something
that looked like a fire, but I knew too well that it
was a fire, a signal fire, that one band makes to let
the others be in readiness for a celebration. That
night I was almost frantic and while the children
slept I made up my mind what I must do to save
them. I resolved never to let them be mutilated by
savage fingers before my very eyes. No, no ! I had
read of such cases and mine should never suffer so,
while I was held captive perhaps to bear other child-
ren by the savage brute that had murdered mine.
I had given existence to mine, now at such a crisis
it was my right to take it from them. I would drown
the older ones, one by one, then take the baby in my
arms and go in beside them. To try to hide would
be useless — the baby would cry and we would be

48 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

found and tortured more for trying to deceive them,
so with the first intimation of their approach we
would find our only safety in the river so near at
hand.

I felt perfectly sure that the end was near, the
signal fire had been the culminating event in the
tragedy, but after the children had eaten the break-
fast which I was unable to taste, I went on with the
milking, through force of habit, I suppose. I'd milk
a cow, then go up the hill to strain my eyes for the
coming of the enemy. At last I saw what I ex-
pected to see, a dust, or was it a smoke? In either
case it meant the same. It was just at the point
where the Shoemakers live and if it were dust, the
Indians were reaching there; if smoke, they had
been there and were leaving. There was no time to
lose. I called my poor terror-stricken babies around
me and told them we must all drown together. If
the older ones held any differences of opinion, they
knew their mother too well to express them, so with
a board in my hand, on which was to be scribbled an
explanation to Nels, we started to the river.

Like Lot's wife I turned once to look back, and the
cause of the dust I had seen was in plain view — my
husband. I have heard of the interventions of Provi-
dence and this must be an illustration, for in ten
minutes more he would have been a man without a
family. He called me crazy and said he would never
trust me alone again and I am not sure that I blame
him. The solitude must be getting on my nerves. I
need a neighbor. I need companionship. I never
seem to feel lonesome for I am always busy, but I
have had too much of my own society.

He brought the word that the wicked Nez Perces
have swerved back to their own reservation and our

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 49

own tribe are in the most peaceful frame of mind so
we can feel relieved until the green grass starts
again.

Little Francis is a most remarkable looking child.
Weighed twenty-seven pounds at five months old. I
don't know that he is any more healthy than the
others have been but he is a picture of contentment.
He is so large that he is inactive and will sit for
hours in one place, just being good.

I hope this recital will not worry you, Father,
since it has all passed into history before it is ever
written, but I want you to know how terrifying it
really is, so that you will not blame me if I ever do
have to kill the youngsters to outwit the savages.

With all our love,

Emma.

A NEW FRIEND,

Dear Father :

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

April 3, 1878.

rPHE spring has come again and found us all here
•*■ enjoying the best of health. I rather imagine
that my last letter has disturbed you a good deal
during the months that you have not heard, but I
have not had occassion to threaten the lives of my
poor youngsters again.

We have had more Indian scares, too, but I have
had pleasant companionship and the river has been
frozen over, two good reasons for more deliberation.

A woman with two small children, acquaintances
of ours, who live over on the stage road, came over
to stay with us while she had a felon treated by the
doctor at Fort Hall. The felon was a terror so she
was here many weeks and what had been a mere
acquaintance has ripened into a friendship that I
am sure will be enduring. She is such a calm,
patient, southern woman, quite young in years but
so old in experience. She came west as a bride.
Not a particularly happy one either for the marriage

52 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

had been arranged by her elders without her con-
sent. After struggling along for several years, she
left the husband and came to the stage station near
us to work and earn a living for herself and little
boy. She secured a divorce and all v/as going well
for she is such a competent woman, then (one morn-
ing while the little boy was playing in the yard, two
men came driving by and while one leveled a gun on
the door of the house where the mother was at work,
the father of the child picked him up and took him
back to Virginia. So my poor beautiful friend was
alone in a strange land. Later, she married a man
much older than herself and they have two children
but she is not happy. The west is so unkind to its
women. I know how she longs for her southern
home and for her first-born. It seems, with so many
men to choose from, surely there must be some good
husbands but I see so many failures all around me.
With all our winter has been pleasant though. After
the felon had given us all the trouble it could, the
doctor concluded he would have to take the thumb
off, so here in the wilderness I have had a little ex-
perience in surgery. Joan was quite sure she would
be alright if I would promise to stay with her and
all during the time she was under the ether, she kept
saying, "Are you there?" and when she knew I was
she was contented. By the time it came to the tying
of the stitches she struggled so that the doctor asked
me to tie them while he held her and I did, so you
see, my first experience has not unnerved me to any
great extent.

It was during the time she was here that we had
our bad Indian scares. The first time a messenger
was sent out from the Fort to warn the settlers. He
surely warned us in a manner that strikes terror to

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 53

my heart to recall. About mid-night, he dashed up
to the door and yelled: "Look out for your hair,
the Indians are coming !" and was gone. Frantic
with fear, we bundled our sleepy youngsters up and
started for the Fort eleven miles away, expecting
any minute to be cut off from help and murdered.
Well, it wasn't so bad after all. The worst feature
being that as soon as we reached the Fort in safety,
Joan discovered that she had left her purse, with
quite an amount of money and some valuable rings
in it, lying on the bed at home, so Nels turned right
around and went back for them leaving us there in
safety. He was not gone long and we all remained
there for several days until the excitement had died
away. The real cause of the alarm was that an In-
dian, thought to be insane,had killed two white men
down near Ross Fork, then when the sheriff came
to make the arrest, a young man named Alex Rhoden
pointed out the offender to the officer, and he too was
shot, so it made a lot of feelings and a general up-
rising was feared.

A second time they sent out messengers from the
Fort to rout us out of our beds and tell us to fly for
our lives, the second time we did not fly. We just
reasoned that we were taking more chances travel-
ing eleven miles that hour of the night than we would
to stay in our own home. It just seemed that if we
were to be killed, we would be anyhow, and if not,
why bother?

Anyway the unpleasantness is all forgotten in the
memory of my new friend. I shall never forget her
patience and her fortitude. Many a woman with
such an affliction would have considered herself an
invalid, but not she. She helped me with the work
in so many ways and took care of her children so

54 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

much better than some women do who are all sound.
Poor dear, so often in taking care of the baby, she
would get the thumb kicked or bumped, causing her
untold misery but she never complained.

We have entered into a financial agreement that
is almost causing me sleepless nights. We have
never had a great supply of this world's goods, but
it has always been our own. Now, we have gone
in debt. Nels bought a beautiful, brown mare from
a man of means at Malad, and paid, or promised to
pay, $250.00. The note will not fall due for a year
but I cannot be sure just where the money is coming
from and each day I am afraid that something will
befall her and we will be obligated to spend the rest
of our lives "paying for a dead horse" as the saying
goes.

I often think of your simple little method of avoid-
ing the credit menace in your shop. You wrote me
once how you considered it better to give a small
amount, explaining that the money should be
brought next time, than to extend any credit I hope
for my own peace of mind that we will take the
money with us the next time we go to buy a horse.

With love from all,

Emma.

AN ADDITION TO THE HOUSE AND TO THE

FAMILY

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,
December 25, 1878.
My dear Father : ,

/"^ HRISTMAS finds us this year with one more lit-
^tle boy two weeks old, and a new room added to
the two that have served us so well. Again I have
had a morbid determination to put an end to all this
struggling, for each year seems to bring so many
new burdens and each year I seem a little less able
to bear them. When I first knew there was to be
another baby, I went to Nels and told him that I
thought I had better drown myself and was very
much astonished that he should disagree with me.
There I had carefully figured out to my own satis-
faction, thinking that perhaps he could raise the
four, but if there were to be more and more of them,
more than I could make clothes for and more than
he could buy clothes for, what was the use! Some-
way he scolded, threatened or begged until I con-
sented to stay a little longer and we are quite happy
now to begin another winter.

56 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

I guess Nels concluded too that there was not
much room for number five, so during the good
weather he has built on a nice big room, in fact, it
is two rooms. They set the new one with a space be-
tween it and the original house, then filled in the
space making a sort of hall so it really give us four
rooms now.

Another thing that has given us a little comfort,
we have had a Missouri family living with us since
September and she is very good help. I had a very
bad sick spell in the early fall and we heard of these
people rather by accident. He had been freighting
and she was living at Malad so we got them to come
here for the winter. They have one little boy and we
let them live in one of our small rooms, so that our
housekeeping is separate and yet she helps me when-
ever I need it. She is a forlorn, homesick creature
and I think her misery helps me to see the folly of
my own ways. She is always grieving to go back to
old Missouri and cries most every day. In fact her
tears have become so common with us all that my
husband offered her a quarter to laugh once. The
offer was so ridiculous that she did laugh. Poor
Mollie, she has enough to cry over if there was any
hope of tears bringing a change. Her husband is
a good deal older than she and none too kind. She
came out here away from all her relatives to make
a fortune, I guess, and the fortune seems very slow-
about materializing. They must have been raised
in the most benighted section of the south for they
use awful English and he cannot write his own name,
but they have had their church and their camp
meetings and they miss all of those things. We were
amused at her a short time ago. We butchered a
hog the first since they had been with us, and she ex-

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 57

claimed in the most delighted manner: "Oh, good,
at last we shall have some meat !" We nearly always
have fresh beef and frequently fish and game,but
with her, pork seems to be the only thing that counts
as meat. Well, with all her peculiarities, she is a
good hearted person and has certainly been a bless-
ing to me.

My, my, I am almost forgetting to tell you about
the baby's name. Our little Willie boy, who is now
nearly five and very witty, bought him from this
Mrs. Warren soon after his arrival for twenty-five
cents and named him Charlie. I do not know just
why that name or why his fancy for it but we all
think it a pretty good one.

And our Freddie boy has become quite a fisher-
man. In fact, I almost feel that my occupation is
gone for he is quite as successful as I, even when I
have the time to give to it, and I seldom do these
busy times. During the summer, it was quite a
common thing for him to go over to the river for an
hour or so before supper time and come back with as
many as he could carry.

Jimmie seems to be the worker of the flock. He is
all business. Goes with his father to chop or shovel
and seems to know just how to do it all.

I believe I told you when I last wrote that we had
contracted our first debt. Well, we paid it in six
months instead of a year and were not obliged to
pay any interest, but I hope we never, never buy
another thing until we have the money to pay for it.
I fear and despise debt and I hope that my children,
my grandchildren and my great-grand-children will
do the same. My first home might have been a
happy one had it not been for debt and drink. It
only takes one of these destroyers to wreck a home.

58 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

But to return to the mare. Nels had wintered a lot
of freight oxen, that is he had kept track of them for
the owners, while they ate Uncle Sam's grass. That
Letted him a neat sum. Then we have had some
government contracts supplying beef to the soldiers
at Fort Hall and that has given us quite a substantial
lift, so the mare is paid (for and she has a beautiful,
mare colt that is the pride of the family, so I guess,
she was a good investment.

I don't believe I have ever told you of the queer,
or perhaps I should say "large" experience that we
have had in the soap making business. During a
period of several months, or possibly a year or two,
of butchering, we had accumulated four hundred
pounds of tallow. Nels hauled it to Corinne and
could only get four cents a pound for it, so he
brought it back and we made it all up into soap and
candles. I don't think we will ever be out of soap.
May have to ship you some to sell for us.

Well, I have written away the daylight of a short
winter afternoon and I hear a stir in the cradle
where my tiny son lies sleeping, so good-bye for
another time.

Our love to you,

Emma.

THE WITNESS STAND

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

March 8, 1879.
My dear Father:

TTERE I have been so busy relating the details of
■" family life that I have forgotten to mention
the coming of the railroad. When we settled here,
my husband always said there would be a railroad
in ten years and his prophesy has been fulfilled in
about seven as it reached the little burg of Blackfoot
fifteen miles from us, sometime during December.
Now, I've had a ride on the steam cars. Would you
believe it? And a visit to the city of Zion, the zion
that you brought my mother six thousand miles to
see.

It is very changed since I saw it last in the sixties,
but I took little note of its improvements for my
mind was too much engrossed in the three months
old baby in my arms and in the fact that I was the
star witness in a murder trial. Can you imagine it,
father? Your little Em taking such a part in the
affairs of men.

I did not realize that my testimony was of such
vital importance until it was all over, then the re-
mark of the attorney was heard to the effect that I

60 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

was the one witness they feared, but wait, I have
not told you. One cold night in February a very un-
usual looking man appeared at the door and after
making several inquiries, drew out the subpoena that
called me as witness on the trial of Robert T. Bur-
ton being held on the charge of murder at Salt Lake.

In the years of our trials of homesteading, I have
tried to forget the details most unpleasant of all
our early experiences, the Mormon-Morrisite war.
As I have grown more mature in judgment, I have
realized that we poor misguided Morrisites were
very much at fault for in defying the sheriff's posse
as we did, we were really defying our government,
for even though the posse was formed of the pillars
of the Mormon church they were vested with the
authority from Washington and we should not have
tried to evade arrest. But this is all looking back-
ward and I must proceed with my adventure.

Of course, first of all, I protested that I could not
leave my family but Nels said it was my duty to go
and he felt sure that my memory could not fail to
bring the guilty to justice.

So I went but with a sinking heart! I regretted
to leave my four boys that I had never been away
from over night; I regretted to take my tiny infant
among poeople where might lurk the germs of every
dread disease; and I regretted most of all, going
among the Mormon people. They say a burnt child
dreads the fire, so I guess a child that has been shot
at cannot help fearing the hand that pulled the trig-
ger. Every foot of the way we traveled I expected
the train would be blown off the track, for it carried
a number of witnesses, or I expected we would be
burned in the court room, anything to wreck the
Mormon vengeance as I had known it. But the Mor-

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 61

mons are changed since those days, father, they are
a different people.

Still, frightened as I was, when I sat in the wit-
ness chair the old scenes came back to me as vividly
as if they had occurred but yesterday.

I saw the hills blackened by the approaching ene-
my, heard the bugle call, our own beloved Morrisite
call, that assembled us in the bowery and I knew
again with what joy and trust I went forth expecting
to be delivered by the hand of the Almighty. Then
I saw a cannon ball come rushing through that
humble gathering, fired by the waiting hordes on the
hillside, and two of our trusting Morrisites lying
dead in the bowery. Yes, I saw it all, father, and
told them as only one who had seen could ever tell
it, and the Mormons assembled there in the name of
the law, began to fear me just as I had at first feared
them.

I told them of the babe in its mother's arms fall-
ing to the ground at the boom of the first cannon
and before the firing ceased, falling again when its
second protector was killed. I told them of a woman,
then in their city, who had lost the entire lower
part of her face when the first ball was fired into
defenseless gathering of men, women and children.

I told them of the hoisting of the white flag by
our terror stricken band and of the Mormon war-
riors, less heeding than any savage tribe of the
wilderness, continuing to fire, killing four right
under the flag of truce.

I told them how, on the second day, I had gone
skipping across the public square in childish fear-
lessness with "cannons to the right of me and can-
nons to the left of me" to find my mother huddled in
the little cellar under our house, white as in death,

62 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

marking the number of cannons fired with a stick
in the dirt. She had counted seventy-five that one
day. Oh, father, I can see her always, poor suffering
creature, as she took me in her arms saying: "Thank
God, my child, you are safe." I looked at her in
childish eagerness and dismay saying: "Why,
mother, is your faith weakening? God will punish
these foolish destroyers." But she only hugged me
closer sobbing: "My child bullets will kill!"

I told them how after three days of almost con-
tinuous firing, they had surrounded us taking our
men prisoners after having killed our beloved pro-
phet, Joseph Morris. I told them how in the strug-
gle that followed his fall, you stood by the lifeless
form of the prophet and said to the Mormon that
had once posed as our friend : "You've killed him,
now you better kill me" And of his attempt to
shoot you had his gun not refused to obey his will.
Then I told them of the gentle creature, Mrs. Bow-
man, who came forth during the struggle calling
one of the leaders "A blood thirsty wretch." I told
them how, before my childish eyes the fiend ex-
claimed: "No woman shall call me that and live."
and suiting the action to the word, he shot her down.

And so after all these years, I was the instrument
to avenge these wrongs to what mild extent it could
ever be done. I was in the witness chair and my
word would send to the gallows the murderer of
that poor woman.

After questioning me sufficiently, they asked me
to look around the court room and see if I recognized
anyone. Did I? Well, I certainly did, just as I
would recognize you, my own father, after all these
years of separation. There he sat with his same
flowing beard and gleaming eyes. His face had been

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 63

the one thing that I could see distinctly all during
my examination, as it had looked when I saw him
years before and as it looked then. I think it had
really served to bring the scenes before me more
vividly as I recounted the details, particularly when
it had come to the point of his pulling me roughly
away from the body of Joseph Morris just after I
had seen him slay Mrs. Bowman, but at this point
my memory only served to set him free. You father,
no doubt would have remembered correctly, but the
two leaders, Stoddard and Burton, had always been
pointed out to me together and just as sometimes
will occur, I had transposed the names, and the guil-
ty man that I saw before me was the one I had al-
ways believed to be Stoddard. It so happened that
the man Stoddard had been dead a good many years,
so my testimony simply laid all the crimes on to the
dead man and set free the criminal before me. So
ignorant was I of courts and counsels, and so de-
pendent upon my childish recollections, that it never
occured to me there was any chance for mistake until
I had killed my own evidence.

Anyway, I was glad to be through with it and be
free to come back to my little boys and my home. I
had been gone for two weeks and had never
heard a word for each day they expected I would be
back. Each day Nels had sent a team to meet me
only to find a letter saying the trial dragged on. I
guess it seemed long to them but it was surely an
eternity to me, and I have never smelled anything
so sweet as the sage brush that crushed under the
wheels that night when they brought me home. It
was a mild spring night and had been raining so
that everything was fresh and pure in such con-
trast from the coal smoke I had been obliged to

64 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

breathe. I found everyone well though the children
had been sick during my absence and we were a
happy family indeed to be re-united. I think that
home coming will always stand out as one of the
happiest times of my life and in spite of my failure
as a "star witness" I hope this letter will carry to
you a portion of the contentment that is in my heart.

Always the same,

Emma.

THE COMING OF THE LONDONERS

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

June 3, 1879.

My dear Father:

TVTEXT TO seeing you,
•*• M cannot think of
anything that could have
given us greater pleas-
es ure than to welcome the
two splendid young men,
Arthur and Lewis Jud-
ges, that you sent to us.
Such an event to have
two nifty Londoners ar-
rive at the humble dwell-
ing of the Justs on the far away Blackfoot. If
they had but waited to get our letter of instructions
they might have been a little better prepared to meet
the conditions that now confront them, but they have
such a wealth of enthusiasm that such things as
suitable wearing apparel are really minor considera-
tions. I must say though, that even amid my joy
at seeing them, there was an under current of regret
that our home is so dull and dirty. I guess woman
was ever thus, but I seem to be spending my life
waging war against dirt and yet it is everywhere I
look. But it is the boys I want to tell you about.
Surely you did not know what an amount of arms
and amunition they burdened themselves with. Such
a picture they presented when the liveryman
dropped them down at the door, dressed in the
styles of the old world and then, duly protected

66 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

against beast and savage by every known make of
fire-arm. Tis well that we have a Post near us for
I imagine that in a very few weeks they will have
many army supplies to dispose of.

Fortune favored them, for in a day or two after
they came, a young man who works for us came
driving a bear up to the corral. Their plan was to
butcher it in a most dignified manner, after getting
it gently into captivity, but the new-comers rushed
out and frightened the poor beast so he trotted up
above the house and they over-took and killed him.
We rarely see one these days and certainly are not
often on such familiar terms with them but I think
this one must have put in his timely appearance
just to give the boys something to try their guns on.

We've had another experience, too since they came,
that almost proved the death of me, that is, if humi-
lation ever does kill. I began to cut the boys' hair,
you know, of course, that I am the family barber,
and the first one I looked at was lousy! ThfriK of
my children being lousy! I called in another one
and he was lousy, and then their father, and he was
lousy, and I didn't know what to do. I had never
seen a head louse since the early days in Utah when
the school children all had them and I remember
how horrified my mother was when she found them
on me. She thought it was the worst disgrace im-
aginable because in England only beggars had such
things. Now in our home we were over run with
them just at the time we most desired to be clean
and respectable. I begged them all not to mention
it to the Judges boys for I knew it would be the one
thing they could not forgive.

We held a family council and decided that the
young man who had come to work for us had

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 67

brought them to us, so we called him in to have his
hair cut, but neither louse nor nit was to be found
in his head. Then they all washed with strong
home-made lye soap and we hoped we would be rid
of them. All promised well until my husband in-
sisted that the Judges boys be told of it, said it was
their right to know for they might catch them. The
children were having a lot of fun over the discovery.
They thought the little creatures very interesting
and it was very hard to keep the matter hushed so
finally it all came out and the immaculate English-
men decided to have a turn at the hair cutting.
Poor fellows, their equipment for the wilds had not
been sufficient to protect them from everything;
they had more than anyone, lice and nits of every
description. In the fair haired boy's head, the lice
were light colored, and in his brother's they were
dark and it was evident that they had brought them
to the ranch for they had more than anyone. We
supposed they had picked them up on the ship or on
the train, but they, of course, had never seen such
a thing. So we are rid of them now I think and the
tenderfoot boys are becoming westernized.

Some things are so hard for them to understand,
the dryness of our air and sunshine is one. I had
washed a few things for them one very warm day,
and as I gathered the clothes in early in the after-
noon, I folded their night shirts, rough dry, and put
them in their room. That evening, Lewis came out
and said: "My word Mrs., I would not dare wear
this night shirt, in England we would not think of
wearing our clothes without they were properly
aired." I didn't laugh, honest I didn't, but I did
want to ask him what he called that stuff that was
circulating around our clothes line all day, if not air.

68 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

They are such fine chaps though and they will learn
some day that whatever else we may be short of,
we have great quantities of air and sunshine.

They will stay with us until they make some defi-
nite plans for themselves. Our Missouri family
moved away this spring so it leaves me the burden of
work again. Arthur is just like a girl having done
nothing but indoor work and he is very handy about
helping me in the kitchen. He is also starting a gar-
den and my little boys are so taken up with him.

Baby Charlie is growing and well and he joins the
rest of us in sending his love to his far away grand-
father.

Your

Emma,

A TRAGEDY

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

December 6, 1879.

Dear Father:

UR BEAUTIFUL

baby boy was so
terribly burned a
few weeks ago
and I hoped by
waiting I might
be able to write
you that his little
features are not
badly marred, but
sometimes I feel there is no hope. He was sitting
in his high chair, near the stove, and I had a coal oil
can of water heating , so I could not see the baby
from where I stood and by some means the chair
in which he was sitting tipped over throwing him on
top of the hottest part of the stove. He struck his
face on the side and then slipped so that the skin was
just simply taken off the whole side of his face and
the inside of one little hand that reached out to try
and save himself. For two hours he screamed with us
walking up and down the floor with him, the only
thing that we could do until the doctor was sent for
by messenger eleven miles away. Finally he went
to sleep and the left eye swelled so that we never ex-
pected that he would open it again. Of course, it
was very little that we could see when he was in
such agony, but we felt sure the eye ball was so

70 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

injured that sight would be destroyed. The doctor
came and dressed the burns once and since then I
have taken care of them myself but the poor little
mite has suffered terribly. He was such a good
baby and his features all so perfectly formed, you
know what a beauty he is in the little picture I sent
after we came from Salt Lake, it seems such a pity
that he must grow into manhood scarred because
of his parent's carelessness. The eye is all right
but at the corner by the temple the lid droops and
there seems to be the deepest scar but everyone
thinks that because of his being so young much of
it will grow away.

I suppose we should be thankful that we have been
so fortunate thus far with our family, no broken
bones and only the one seriously sick, but the thing
that hurts us most with this, we shall always feel
that it should have been avoided. As in all accidents,
no one knows just how this happened but there must
have been something under one leg of the high chair
so that it did not set level for it was never known
to tip over. Really the chair is quite the pride of the
household. Grandfather Just made it for Jimmie
and it has the sturdiest look asr if it would protect
a baby from anything. The legs are well apart so
the base is wide and it seems the next thing to im-
possible to upset it, besides, it has helped a great
deal in bringing three boy babies safely to little
boyhood and we cannot understand how it happened
to fail us with the fourth.

You will be anxious to hear from the Judges boys,
I know. Arthur is still with us and will teach the
boys this winter. They will work in forenoons and
then have school in the afternoons. It is a very
happy arrangement for us all and the boys are eager

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 71

to begin. Lewis tried several things, among them
cowboying, and had his face so blistered that he
scarcely knew himself. It was evident to us that he
had been too long an indoor man to make a success
of any sort of rough work so we persuaded him to go
to Salt Lake and try and find employment. That is
the nearest point where a book keeper could be sure
of finding work, but he was loathe to go because of
the Mormons. He said : "Drat them, I won't work
for them," but he knew that our advice was for his
good so he finally swallowed his prejudices and went.
I wonder, father, if you are responsible for his ana-
mosity toward the Mormons? He is surely very
bitter but if nothing else he will find their money
quite acceptable and I am sure they will find his
services the same for good office men are not easy
to find even in Salt Lake and the Mormons are
obliged to secure much of their help from among the
Gentiles for their converts are mostly from the un-
educated classes. Still the Mormon people as a class
have made great strides forward since you knew
them and when you come back, which I hope will be
very soon, you will not recognize them.

We have instituted a system of starting the boys
in the cattle business. Each is to be given a heifer
calf when he is ten years old, then he owns the
herd that will accumulate and he will feed them. We
also pay them a certain amount for such chores as
they are able to do, milking, wood chopping, churn-
ing and such things, then they buy their shoes or
something that they need with the money. We hope
it will teach them something of the value of money
but it is hard to tell just what to do to be sure of
making good useful citizens of them.

72 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

Fred has had a saddle pony of his own for some
time and he adores spurs, bridles, saddles and all
that pertains to horses and the stock business in
general.

I must go now and look after my poor little suf-
fering infant.

With our love,

Emma.

A NEIGHBORHOOD WEDDING

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

June 1, 1880.
My dear Father:

rpHE WINTER passed rather more pleasantly
■*■ than usual. The boys were so interested in their
first school, the baby's scars are becoming dimmer
each day and everything seems to be running very
smoothly.

For real winter diversion, we had a wedding. Our
neighbor, Mr. Burrell, who has long been a confirmed
bachelor, took unto himself a wife on New Year's
day. They came by in what seemed to us. grand
style, four horses and a hired driver brought them
up from Blackfoot where the ceremony had been
performed. The bride comes from the States but
has been in the Malad country some time nursing
She is much younger than Mr. Burrell but had been
married before. Nels is not on good terms with Mr.
Burrell, they have had difficulty over lines, and cat-
tle, in fact, most everything, so I have not been there,
but Arthur Judges visits them and tells me about
her. She is very lonely as I can well imagine, with
only one neighbor and she not allowed to visit.
Well she and I cannot quarrel as our husbands do if
we never meet.

74 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

I tell you so many of our troubles that I sometimes
wonder if I give you the impression that we have
nothing pleasant to record. We surely have. One
of the great events is our yearly pilgrimage to the
Stevens ranch. Of course they only live about
twenty miles away but there is always something to
be done, cows to milk, butter to churn, etc., and to
neglect them might mean starvation, so only about
once a year do we all don our best clothes and go
there to stay over night or perhaps two. The child-
ren look upon that trip as sort of a combination of
Christmas, Fourth of July and picnic. I guess I
have failed to tell you that there are four Stevens
children now. The second, a girl named Emma for
me, then a son, Jimmie and a baby girl, Abbie. They
usually visit us about once a year, too, so that the
children keep well acquainted. Her Fred and my
Fred also write occassionly. Oh, yes, you spoke
of our Fred's penmanship. Isn't it remarkable?
Why when he was nine years old he could write so
much better than I that I refused to write copies
for him. Does it ever seem to you that such a thing
as penmanship could be hereditary? I do not believe
much in hereditary but I do not know how else to
account for his gift. You know what a wonderful
artist his father was in that line. Why I have sat
entranced, watching him write out the great long
muster rolls in the army and the motion of his pen
was like the strokes of an artist's brush. That
father never saw the boy since he was five weeks
old, yet here he is writing with everything and on
everything, imitating every new hand writing and
at the same time developing one of his own that
positively resembles his father's even now.

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 75

There is another form of diversion we enjoy dur-
ing the pleasant weather. Early some Sunday morn-
ing we drive over to Sand Creek, about five miles,
and camp. The ducks are plentiful there and while
Nels russels enough for dinner I give the boys each
a hair cut, then they bathe in the creek, put on clean
clothes and we come home at night, refreshed and
ready for work again.

We do not raise much yet so that the cattle are
about our only income. Of course the garden helps
and we raise enough potatoes to last us through the
winter. We have planted a few acres of alfalfa, or
lucern as we prefer to call it, but it did not yield
very well and the grass hoppers played havoc with
what did grow. The water is still the big problem
and Nels is always planning and working to get the
water on a larger acreage. Most of our land can be
irrigated in time but it is too big a job for one man
in one life time. He has had to hire some help al-
ready and the ditch they have dug is only a sort of
an experiment. We have siet out a few fruit trees
with the hope that we can get water enough to them
to keep them alive. Our old friend Billie Jones of
Ogden sent them up after seeing me in Salt Lake at
the trial. Even a fruit tree that may never bear
looks a little bit more like civilization.

Sometimes it seems like a terrible struggle and
we wonder if it is worth while then again we feel
full of courage that we will win in time. Once Nels
was ready to move to Montana and give it up but I
persuaded him to stay on a little longer and I don't
think he has ever regretted it. A spot that isi none
too fertile but that is home is better then beginning
a life-long search for the "promised land." Once a
traveler stayed over night and looking over the sit-

76 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

uation said : "Why don't you folks go back to Miss-
ouri where you can raise something?" One of us
made answer that we were afraid we couldn't make
a living. "Pshaw!" he said, "anyone that can make
a living here, can any place." So we are none too
prosperous but we owe no man and we are here first
so whatever opportunities a new country has to offer
we are here to accept.

My duty calls me so with fondest love, I must say
good-by,

Emma.

■^mm]{

WHEN DEATH COMES

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

March 15, 1881.
My dear Father:

cannot tell you when I wrote to you last but it
•*■ must seem very long indeed to one waiting in lov-
ing anxiety. I do know, however, that for a year now
life has been sort of a cruel nightmare to me and
I had no desire to share my trials with you. Some-
times I have thought that the worst must be over,
that our lives would be easier for the rest of the
journey, but I know now that the past year has been
the hardest of our experience and I do not seem able
to rise above it. I am broken in health and my mind
is a mass of chaos. Five little boys are hourly need-
ing my attention and I haven't the strength to
give them any. Day after day they go with buttons
missing and faces unwashed and I can only look on
in despair.

You see, last April we were expecting a baby
and were again confronted with the problem of se-
curing help, so late in the winter Nels happened to
run across a young woman at Blackfoot who was in
need of a home and thought we could manage to
help each other. She had a young baby and was

78 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

living with relatives, her husband having left her
rather mysteriously soon after their marriage. All
promised well enough but she was young and inex-
perienced and with the baby to care for, so I soon
found that instead of help, I simply had two more
added to my family. It was not long though until a
strange man appeared at the door way to claim a
wife and baby and explain that he had been terribly
sick some place away off the railroad and had not
been able to write to her. They were soon a re-
united family and after she did up his accumulated
washing and gathered up her few belongings, they
started out for themselves.

By that time we were getting in desperate need of
help so we sent up Snake River, to a place called
Conant Valley, for the Missouri couple that had
been with us before. They came as soon as weather
and road conditions would permit, but our children
had already begun to fall sick. At first we thought
it some simple malady but they seemed to have such
terrible sore throats, so we finally called a doctor
from Fort Hall, and horror of horrors, he told us
we had scarlet fever of the most malignant type
and emphasised his decision by saying he would
much rather his children have the small-pox. We
never go anywhere to expose the children to disease
so we knew it had been brought to us by the father
of the baby, for our boy that had taken a special
fancy to him was the first to take sick and the last
to get well. I remembered too that while his wife
was doing his washing there was a most peculiar
odor rising from the tub.

So for three weeks preceding my confinement, we
had six children down at once, five of ours and one
of the Warrens who had come to help us. Twenty

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 79

nights I took my turn sitting up half the night, then
when I knew that I, too, must soon be a care, J
finished out the night. And the next day, just across
the hall from my little boys moaning in their delir-
ium, I gave birth to twin girls. We had an old Mid-
wife and she gave us the best care she could, but it
was poor enough and I think both the babies and
myself had the fever. The doctor told me I
would take it but I was determined to stay with the
boys until the last. Somehow we all struggled
through but the babies were always puny. One
weighed six and one seven pounds at birth but they
never gained the way they should. I did not have
enough milk for both so gave them part cow's milk
and the hot weather was too much for their feeble
little bodies, so in September they both died, just
five days apart. We had named them Finetta and
Heneage for my two best friends and they lie buried
on the bench that rises north of the house, just far
enough over the brow of the hill so I cannot see the
graves from the door. Their little coffins had to be
made of what materials we could find for we have
been at such an expense. Some of the time we have
kept help in the house but my Fred boy has been
my one faithful helper through it all. It does not
seem fair to burden one so young with such a weight
of cares but there seems to be no other way.

During the life of the babies, I slept with both of
them and with little Charlie, who has just past two,
and Francis in a trundle bed by the side of me. Nels
felt that he could not be robbed of his rest or he
would be unable to carry on his work, so for the five
months I had the care of the four and I never knew
what it was to sleep two hours at a time. Then
when I could see the first one failing I was recon- «

80 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

ciled that she must go but I was sure that we would
raise the other, and even after she died, the children
and I consoled each other that the cradle was not
empty as it would be in most homes when a baby
had died. But when the second one had to go, all
that I had borne during the months seemed to crush
me. When I looked at her little dead face I wanted
to scream and run away from it all, then just when
I would have broken down, Nels put his hand on
my shoulder and said : "Bear up, Emma, for my
sake." Bear up, I surely did. For weeks and
weekte) I never slept a night and everyone feared I
was losing my mind. It seemed to me that I had no
mind to lose. Nels would take me for long rides in
the buggy or on horse back, miles and miles and
miles to try to tire me so I would sleep but the
nerves that had been strained so long would not let
go. I have seen him hold a ticking watch at my ear
for two hours at a time with the hope that the mon-
otony would bring me sleep and rest, but sleep was,
or seemed to be, out of the question and all the time
I had never shed a tear over the loss of my darling
babies. Oh, father those dreadful weeks are too
terrible to recount.

I am better now. That is, I am sleeping better,
but the reason is that there is to be another baby.
It must be Nature's way of bringing me rest but it
seems like a very queer way. I shall be glad to have
my poor empty arms filled again, the spirit is willing
but the flesh is so faltering. When I look at my five
poor little neglected boys, I wonder why nature does-
n't see fit to send them another and more able mother
instead of sending me another baby. Here am I
who was once able to do work for others and bring
in money, unable to care for my own house and child-

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 81

ren. I must not trouble you longer, father dear. I
think I am really glad now that you live so far away
you have been spared much.

With our love,

Emma*

ANOTHER LITTLE GRAVE.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

December 12, 1882.
My dear Father :

T'VE HAD another promise of a daughter — only
■*-a promise and I have but an empty cardie and an
aching heart to remind me of the hope.

Somehow I dragged through the weary months
of summer but about a month before we expected
the baby I realized that something terrible
was wrong. I had not over-exercised nor over-wor-
ried but I knew that the life had gone from the
body beneath my heart. I knew that my own body
that had been a temple where reposed a precious
life, had suddenly and mysteriously been trans-
formed into a morgue, And Oh, the grewsomeness
of that certainty!

I told Nels of my fears but I could not convince
him that it was anything but "Woman's imagina-
tion." I begged him to call a doctor but he did not
see any need of it. I guess I should not blame him
for how can any one but a mother know what a dif-
ference there is between a living child, with its sen-
sitive little muscular body responding to her every
emotion, and the leaden weight of a child that no
longer moves. To him duty is everything and he

84 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

strives to do his full duty but there are times when
a little tenderness would count for so much more,
and his indifference at this time I feel was one of
the cruelest blows he has ever dealt me. Days that
seemed as long as years followed one after another
and I waited and worried. Finally he began to feel
alarmed and called a doctor. Of course, the doctor
confirmed my belief. Told us just how long the
baby had been dead and when I could exepect my
delivery. After that I waited again but I did not
worry so much. To know the worst is better than
uncertainty, and I knew that it was going to be a
fight for my life and I must prepare to meet it
bravely.

Just at the time the doctor had specified, I was
taken sick and the baby, a little girl, was born with-
in a few hours. I never even looked at her for I
needed every atom of strength and courage to aid
my recovery. They buried her immediately beside
the other two, so I have three little girls, but they
are all "gone before."

The much feared complications from such an ex-
perience, never came, and I am in as good health
as I have been for some time but if I could petition
the Powers-that-be I should say, "Spare me from
another "still birth." Surely it is enough to ask a
mother to put her life in the balance for the sake of
another life, but to suffer the same agonies and only
be rewarded by another little grave, is unbearable.

I have this one consolation now, however. I have
nothing to fear in the years that are to come. I
can rest in the assurance that life has nothing worse
in store for me than it has already handed out.
Within two short years we have had three births
and three deaths. Disease has laid us all low and

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 85

robbed me of the strength of my young womanhood.
I can surely stand anything after what I have been
through.

I have help in the house now, a very good girl,
though only fifteen years old, and she is good com-
pany for me, too. Our family is large this winter,
we have a cowboy boarding here and Nels has a
miner named Frank Gary helping him with the roc'k
work on his ditch. In order to get water on a large
portion of our land a ditch must be taken from the
river half a mile farther up, then a bluff, or out-
cropping of lava lies diectly in its course. That
must all be blasted away. These bluffs occur at
regular intervals all down the widening river valley,
one near the house we have used for the north side
of the corral. So one proved very useful and the
other has to be removed by a slow and laborous pro-
cess.

This Mr. Gary is also quite intellectual and is
continuing the boys' schooling in the evenings, so
all promises well for pleasant winter after the tur-
bulent seasons that have passed into history.

With our love,

Emma.

THE FIRST CIRCUS.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

September 4, 1884.
My dear Father :

YV7HEN the weeks and months pass by rather un-
™ eventfully I grow careless about writing and the
first thing I know a year has passed. I am glad that
your letters to me come more regularly for what
could I do without them ?

I know you will rejoice when I tell you the young-
ters have been to a circus. The first one that came
through the country stopped at Eagle Rock and we
all went to see it, that is Nels took us up and
we made a little camp just outside the town and he
stayed with the team while the children and I went
in. He imagined that the horses might get fright-
ened of some of the animals and get away from us.
I really do not think he cared to go anyway. We've
lived in the silent places so long that it is very hard
to adjust ourselves to noise and crowds. A crowd
there certainly was ! Hundreds of people from hun-
dreds of miles around ! There was a time when we

88 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

knew most everyone in this part of the valley but
the settlers have come so fast since the railroad got
here that we cannot keep track of them. I was not
able to enjoy myself much as I was so afraid of an
accident, but five small boys had the time of their
lives. Fred got away from the bunch and caused me a
great deal of anxiety, but during the performance,
a clown did something funny trying to imitate one of
the others, and just as Mr. Clown fell, I heard Fred
laugh away up on one of the highest seats. A circus
costs a lot of money for a family the size of ours but
it was worth it to see how happy the boys were.

I am glad you asked about the Judges boys. I
believe I told you that Lewis went to Salt Lake City.
He had no trouble to get a good position there and
soon was installed in the Z.C.M.I., which is really
a mercantile establishment conducted by the Mor-
mon church. He soon married a Mormon girl, too,
so his extreme prejudices were forgotten. Arthur
went from here to the Stevens ranch but has left
much of his London learning with the boys. He
taught both their heads and their hands. He was
such a wonderful gardener! Why, he raised toma-
toes and other tender vegetables such as we imagined
belonged to tropical climes. It begins to look as if
we had been so busy making a living we have never
found out what a wonderful country this is.

Once while Arthur was here he borrowed a cata-
logue from our new neighbor, Mrs. Burrell, and we
send there for almost everything we use. Prices are
so moderate and the joy of ordering and receiving
goods right in your own home are not to be over-
looked. The boys are just about beside themselves
with joy when a bill of goods arrives from Mont-
gomery Ward.

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 89

Another source from whence comes our earthly
goods is an Irish peddler who makes yearly trips
through the country. Besides the goods that he sells
he holds us spell bound until far into the night tell-
ing us of his travels. He has been everywhere and
is a good talker so we watch eagerly for his visits.
He usually plans to spend Easter with us and he is
as welcome as the spring itself.

I must tell you, too, that I have met Mrs. Burrell.
After she had lived within a mile of us for more
than a year, she came down one morning to tell us
that a deserter had been seen in their field. He had
gotten away from the camp at Ft. Hall and she
knew that the searchers were here. I've also met her
since at Mrs. Warren's. Guess I've never told you
that the Warrens finally located on the river above
Mr. Burrell's. So even though Mrs. Burrell and I
do not visit, in deference to our husbands, we each
have a friend in Mrs. Warren: Often when my
work is done, I take a horse and go for a delicious
little ride up there about two miles, and after a few
minutes talk with her come back refreshed and
happy.

The boys are getting to be more and more help to
me. Fred has recently taken over the washing for
men that happen to be here. He buys the soap from
me and they pay him a small amount for washing
so he has a little profit besides taking that much
work from me. They're good boys but I wish they
would not quarrel so much. I tell Nels I know that
other people's children don't quarrel so much as ours,
but he thinks I am mistaken. Why, ours even
quarrel after they are in bed when there is nothing
to do but sleep. One time I was so desperate with
it all that I rushed in to Nels and woke him up to

90 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

tell him I wished he would get up and let them yell
"Dad, Dad" a while, for it had been "Ma this, and
Ma that" until I was nearly frantic. He woke up
startled and said: "Why Emma, you'd be out of
luck if they couldn't yell ma." Of course I cried,
the only thing there was left to do and I always felt
it was a just rebuke. Surely the knowledge of the
little graves up on the hill should make me kind to
the ones I have left.

Another time when I had been tried to the limit
of endurance, I concluded to send Fred away from
home, so I packed up his few belongings and started
him down the road. Of course, I kept hoping he
would come back soon and he did very penitently.
Raising boys is certainly a problem. This leaves us
well though, and small matters of disposition do
not matter so much.

With love,
Emma.

ANOTHER LITTLE SISTER.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

August 8, 1885.

Dear Father:

"V7"ES, there has been another little sister at our
■*- house, just loaned to us for a few weeks, then
taken away to join the other little sisters who are
never to grow up. I do not see why it had to be for
her chances seemed to be so much better for life and
health, but I am beginning to feel that we are never
to have a sister for our boys. Five boys and never a
sister for them! It seems to me that I have but
two wishes: one is to have you safely back to Am-
erica and the other is to raise a daughter. Always
I keep hoping but the years go by and neither pray-
er is granted. The boys are almost men now and nc
one knows what a power for good a little sister
would be in their lives.

This one was born when it was summer, June
sixth, and we had good help. The country is full
of help now. There is no more dread of being alone

92 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

with sickness. Several Scotch families have moved
in from the mining towns in Utah and there are two
lovely girls named Mackie that take turns helping
me, then a woman of much experience was here to
take care of the baby. She was very kind to me and
I felt that all would surely be well this time. The
baby, too, seemed perfectly normal at birth, she was
such a darling and looked as if her eyes were going
to be blue, but by the time I was able to be up and
around, I fancied that she was not gaining as she
should, then she seemed to just fade away. Each
day the change would be so slight that no one else
could notice it and I felt it rather than saw it my-
self, then the day she was four weeks old she died.

I shall never forget Lizzie's kindness to me. It
was the fourth of July and a young man had come
to take her to a celebration. I hated to ask her to
stay but I knew the baby was failing fast. She
stayed gladly enough and it was only a few hours
until the tiny life passed out. We had named her
Frances Ella, so my mother really has a little name
sake, and the Ella was given because of a very dear
friend we have had in recent years, a friend that
came here often from the little town of Blackfoot
and laughed with us or cried with us as the mood
suited. She was a wonderful girl but she too has
gone, back to her home in Illinois.

I guess that one can even become accustomed to
death. It is beginning to seem that way with me. I
am not in the terrible broken down condition that I
was at the death of the other babies, anyway. My
health is very much better, of course, than it was
at that time, and this has been the longest rest I've
had between birthdays. I do not dread the coming
of another though when I have lost one. Gladly

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 93

would I have one the next day after one has been
taken away. Nobody knows what the loss of a baby
means to a mother. Every minute of the day and
of the night I miss her. Nels and the boys come
in and look at the empty cradle with a pang, but
when they go out, they forget while my loneliness
is always with me.

My Fred boy has been working away from home
now some for two summers. He is herding horses
now for the Stevens people. Gets fifteen dollars a
month and he put his first three months' earnings
into a saddle. I am not sure that he is going to be
any better at saving money than his father was, but
I guess we should not expect our children to be better
than their parents in all respects. If he will only
keep away from strong drink I think I can stand
most anything else, still I must admit that I was
very much shocked a short time ago when I heard
him use his first swear word. I do not mean to infer
that it was really his first, most boys sound such
forbidden words before they are sixteen years old,
but it was the first time I had heard him and I
almost fell over. His one desire is to be a cowboy
and I may as well be willing. He does not take to
ranch work the way Jim does and I guess I should
feel very well satisfied that he has stayed with his
step father this long. I am not sure though that
parents are ever satisfied. I fear we all expect too
much.

We've had one of Nels* brothers with us since I
wrote last, Peter, the youngest one. He came riding
up, all unannounced, and asked if Nels Just lived
here. I said: "Yes," and walking a little closer to
the horse, added, "and you're a Just too." He smiled
an awful broad smile and said he did not see how

94 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

I could tell. Of course, I had never seen him but I
knew him from his resemblance to his mother and
you know, I had seen her twenty years ago in Soda
Springs. He stayed with us several months and
their father came down from Montana to see us
while he was here. The father and mother have
long lived apart so Peter went back to his mother
in Nebraska.

Must close with the hope that the years will soon
be bringing you to

Your Emma.

WHAT CIVILIZATION MEANS

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

February 1, 1886.
Dear Father :

|"N THE days when we first located here, I used to
■*■ sigh for the things of civilization. I thought it
would surely be a joy to be able to purchase the
necessities of life without traveling for days and
days. I thought it would bring better schools for
our children, better care for our sickness, in fact,
better everything. But I find it is like everything
viewed from a distance, it is not at all what I ex-
pected. True we have a few little towns that have
sprung up along the railroad, where they sell dry
goods in very small quantities and wet goods in very
large quantities. Once we had only space and sun-
shine, now a thousand temptations appear for my
growing boys.

We've had some of the evils of intemperance
brought to our door recently and it makes me won-
der if I am someday to find myself the mother of a
drunkard. There had been a Captain Baker sta-
tioned here at Ft. Hall for a time and later removed
to Ft. Douglas. He had friends here and some prop-
erty, so he came up on a visit and began drinking
and gambling at the little town of Blackfoot. I
don't know just how long it had been going on but

96 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

Nels happened to be in town one day and a mutual
friend suggested that he bring the Captain home
with him to try and sober him up. So on the pre-
tense of buying some of his horses, Nels brought
him home. Poor, miserable piece of humanity ! The
night before he had made out checks to the amount
of fourteen hundred dollars to pay his gambling
debts and after he began to get back his reason Nels
offered to go and stop payment on the checks, but
being a thoroughbred, he declined the offer saying :
"If I was fool enough to write the checks, I can at
least be man enough to pay them.', He stayed
with us several days sick in body and in mind and
we did everything we could for him for we realized
that he was the kind that was worth saving. He
was a trusted officer in the Rebellion, a man of much
learning and refinement, yet he had gone to the low-
est depths. One of the many interesting experiences
that he related was the capture of Wilkes Booth,
who had murdered our beloved Lincoln. He was a
sergeant of the squad that overpowered him.

We do not know that he has mended his ways, but
he left here the most grateful person you ever saw
and he has shown his appreciation by sending us
loads of reading matter, magazines and papers from
all parts of the world, and then at Christmas time
such a wonderful gift. It it a breast pin, I guess,
but very large, and was made to order by Joslin and
Park, the leading jewelers of Salt Lake. The design
is a sword with the belt, straps and buckles, all com-
plete in gold, of course, but so perfectly engraved
that you forget it. The first thought is that it is
large and clumsy but the more you look at the fine
workmanship the more of a prize it becomes and it
seems such a fitting gift from a Captain to the wife

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 97

of a soldier. Nels has always been a trifle jealous
of my enthusiasm for things military, but his love
of the beautiful is so strong that pettiness is for-
gotten and he joins me in gratitude for this wonder-
ful gift. I just believe that when you come back
from England I will meet you at the gate with the
little green velvet box for I am so proud of my one
piece of jewelry.

I wonder, sometimes, whether I am as thankful as
I should be for having a husband that does not drink.
When we were married it seemed to me that all
other faults were as nothing compared with that
one great fault and if Nels would not drink I could
forgive everything else, but pshaw! of what value
are such promises to ourselves? Now that he has
proven all that I expected in that one particular, I
find that I would like him to be different in a thous-
and other ways. Why, I want him to always be
kind and always be thoughtful! It does not seem
like it is asking much either, but he isn't always
kind and sometimes we quarrel over trifles and
make our lives very miserable. Why must folks go
on doing what they know is wrong, else why should
they strive to do better? It may be that I expect too
much, for the men of your generation, father, kicked
their wives about when the occassion demanded and
the poor wives felt lucky if they did not get a down
right thrashing, but here I am pining because of a
few cross words. It has always been my boast that
we have never disagreed on the three big issues of
life; religion, whiskey and the children, but every-
thing else under the sun has given us material for
argument. Then after arguing for a while we
quarrel, then say ugly things and I cry and Nels
goes away disgusted with me and with life in
general.

98 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

We have never had any difficulties over other
women, but Nels is not the lovelorn youth that I
married. I overheard him once telling a young
man that he had to lie to a woman to get her and I
wondered how much of the love he professed for
me had been just to "get me." I was scrubbing the
floor at the time and I added a lot of tears to the
scrubbing water. And such is life.

Why burden you with matrimonial difficulties,
you've had your share and you will rejoice with us
that we are all well and prospering, so what else
matters ?

With love,
Emma.

A LITTLE SISTER.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

February 1, 1887.

My dear Father :

f* AN YOU believe it, we have
^ a tiny baby at our house,
a girl baby? She was born
last September but I never had
the courage to write the good
news to you for fear, well, for
fear that before the letter
could make its long journey to
you, our joy would again be
turned to mourning. I have been obsessed with the
feeling that I was never to raise a girl that I hardly
dare take my eyes off this little mite lest something
will befall her.

Now she has been with us nearly five months and
seems as healthy as a child can be so perhaps I am
to keep her after all. Perhaps I am to raise her to
be a useful woman, a companion to me in my later
life when some of the struggle and hardships are
past. In the last few years I have maintained a
sort of training school for girls and I find plenty of
mistakes that other mothers have made in the train-
ing of their girls, now I shall have a chance to try
on my own. I have had sixteen year old girls come
to help me, grown young women and perhaps con-
templating matrimony, who could not make an apron
or a batch of bread. What were their mothers
thinking of to raise girls that do not know how to

100 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

do the commonest little duties of every day life?
What kind of homes will my boys have when they
marry such girls! But, of course, my girl will be
different. While she lies there in the cradle I can
imagine great things for her.

She came when the leaves were getting ready to
go, when the world was full of golden sunshine
and golden leaves and the heavy blue haze hung
over the mountains. I always think that our falls
are the best part of the year, now I know they are
for this one has brought me the daughter for whom
I have longed. My fifth little daughter, rny five in
one. Now, if I can just live to raise her and to see
you again, I shall feel that life has been indeed kind
to me.

For help this time we had a young Scotch woman
who just moved here from the mines in Wyoming.
She and her husband are homesteading over on the
railroad and as she has only one little girl, can
get ready in a moment or two. Nels went for her
after I was taken sick and my Jim boy was with me,
the other Mackie girl, Agnes, was here as my regu-
lar help. Nels was not gone long and Mrs. Kerr is
a woman of experience in all lines so everything
went pleasantly. I had planned to have a doctor this
time but we got along very well without one. When
the baby was a few hours old, my good helper, Agnes
Mackie! came and held her on her lap and I suggested
that she name her. She said that she did not
know any good names and I asked her what was the
matter with her own name. She modestly protested
but I assured her that it was a good name to me, so
Agnes it is. I can imagine you will soon be writing
letters to her. This Mrs. Kerr has a beautiful little
daughter named Maudie. She has such wonderful

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 101

golden hair and the bluest of blue eyes. She looks
like a doll or a fairy here among my dark skinned
boys, but they are very fond of her. She is as good
as she is pretty and she may always be attractive
to my swarthy boys but she is only four years old
now. One of my favorite theories has always been
that babies should not come into homes where there
are grown up children, and where the older children
are beginning to have babies of their own I have
looked upon it as a positive disgrace. I used to
sometimes even wonder if my own grown up boys
could love a baby, but when my big Fred boy came
home to see his little sister and knelt down beside
the bed to love us both, I knew that she was not "one
too many" as I had feared. Oh, how they all love
her! Some people are already predicting that she
will be "spoiled" but I refuse to be her mother if
she is. I shall expect her to mind just as her broth-
ers have done before her. Of course with so many
brothers she could be spoiled but I shall make it a
point to see that she is not.

This has been the coldest winter of our experience,
during the entire month of January the mercury
has registered below zero and there is a lot of snow.
We have sold hay to sheep men and they are feed-
ing here on the river but the severe weather is hard
on stock of all kinds.

I must close now with five big loves from five big
grandsons and one little, tiny, tiny love from one
little grand-daughter.

Your

Emma.

THE BIG HOUSE.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

January 15, 1888.
Dear Father:

HP HIS year has been mostly spent in building. Did
-*- you ever imagine that your little "Em" would be
living in a brick house by the time you made her a
visit? Well, the brick house is assured and the visit
we are still hoping for.

We have only one room finished but it is such a
big kitchen that we live in it and get along very
well with our sleeping rooms still in the old house.
You see we have burned the brick right here on the
place and the lumber is hauled from saw mills in the
mountains so it has been a long job requiring a lot
of labor. Then too, we are trying to have it all done
as cheaply as possible for it is making terrible in-
roads on our savings. It is built very much on the
plan of the old house, so we will not feel too much
like visitors. The long kitchen occupies the entire
west side of the house and the front will be toward
the east with a hall to the kitchen and a large room

104 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

on one side and two small ones on the other. There
will be a loft where the boys can sleep and the stairs
lead up from the hall.

My good Nettie has a new house this year, too.
Such a beauty. It has a parlor and dining room
and all such things that belong to the world of civili-
zation, and a lot of fine furniture that Steve has
shipped from Ogden. Bureaus and wash stands with
solid marble tops. I never saw such pretty things and
I count myself fortunate indeed that I am privi-
leged to visit there and enjoy it all. Everything of
hers far outshines mine, of course, but mine are
still very much better than I ever expected to fall
to my lot. In all our years of friendship I do not
think there has ever been one shadow of envy or
jealousy. We have always rejoiced in each others
good fortunes. I would as soon think of envying Net-
tie her beautiful golden hair, as her finer home. Why
I remember how we all adored Nettie and I think I
loved her more because of her prettiness than for
any other reason. She was fair and I so like a
Gypsy. In fact, that was one of your names for me,
"little Gypsy", do you remember? Even Nettie's
children, while I will not say they are better than
mine, are far more gifted. I believe I love her Fred
just the same as I do my own. He is such a wonder-
ful boy. So kind and thoughtful and, at the same
time, so intelligent. He is the greatest source of
information. I always have a lot of questions saved
up to ask him when we go down there, and he will
answer them in such a kindly gracious manner that
he makes me feel like I really knew it all the time
and was doing him a great favor to ask him.

With the passing of the Stevens family into the
new house, one of the old land marks is abandoned,

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 105

the old log house that was hauled from Soda Springs
and has been the scene of the happiest times of our
lives. "Bummer's Retreat'' the old room with the
fire place was usually called because everyone
with time to spare congregated there. How the old
walls have often echoed with laughter and song
after a sumptious supper of corn meal mush and
milk. I wonder if we shall ever be able to adjust
ourselves to brick walls and marble topped furniture.

With the children of the two families growing up
in such intimacy I wonder sometimes if they will
ever marry. It seems like it would be ideal for them
to, but perhaps that is the reason they never will.
Children seldom care to marry where it would oe
perfectly satisfactory with the parents. Well, any-
way the friendship has meant a great deal to all of
us in the years that are gone, and that is enough to
know.

Our little girl is growing and walking but she
does not talk yet. She uses a great many signs and
gestures to make herself understood but seems very
slow in saying words. I guess she will talk, though,
if we give her time. Nettie has a baby boy a few
months younger than Agnes, her fifth, but she has
them all yet. So with new babies and new houses
we are leading very busy, happy lives.

I must away to my countless duties, hoping this
finds you well as it leaves all of us.

Your

Emma.

AN IRRIGATION PROJECT.

Blackfoot River, Idaho Territory,

September 3, 1889.
Dear Father:

rp HIS is becoming such a busy world that I hardly
-*■ have time to write to you and the first thing I
know you will be thinking I do not love you.

Now that things seem to be getting pretty well
done at home, with the new house finished and water
on most of the land, Nels is undertaking something
bigger. Water is to be brought from up the Snake
river, above Eagle Rock, to irrigate a large amount
of land that at present is worthless. The people who
are doing it call themselves "The Idaho Canal Com-
pany" and Nels is interested both as a promoter and
a contractor.

I am not sure that I approve of the step, but like
most husbands he did not ask my advice. I've
always looked forward to the time when we could
feel that all the necessities of life were provided for
us and we could have a little leisure for the things
that we long to do. A rose bush or two that will
bloom as if they enjoyed it, a strawberry bed where
we could pick our own fresh berries, and even a good
unfailing vegetable garden where we could be sure

108 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

of finding good things to eat all through the summer.
These things do not appeal to Nels. He always says :
"Oh, Sis, never mind, we'll raise a ton of hay and buy
all the strawberries we need." He is looking for
bigger game.

Of course his vision is broader than mine. He
sees what an enterprise like this will mean to the
country, while I only see that it will take him away
from home and burden him with a lot of work and
worry. The ditch or canal is to be about thirty miles
in length and will supply water for 35,000 acres of
the finest land that ever lay out doors. Land that
we knew to be superior to ours when we located here
but we knew too that it was more than a one man job
to get the water to it. Not an acre of our own land
will be benefitted by the new ditch but Nels feels that
he wants to take part in making "The desert bloom
as the rose."

Another point that appeals to him. He has al-
ways maintained that a father with a growing fam-
ily of boys should provide work for them or they
will drift away from home. This is his opportunity.
By taking contract work he is giving them a chance
to do the work that they understand. We have not
been able to give them much schooling so they must
of necessity be sons of the soil, men that work with
their hands.

Our Jim boy is such a wonder! He is really in
charge of contract work and, though only eigh-
teen years old, he has had as high as thirty-five men
working under him. I wish every father and every
mother in the world might have a Jim boy like ours.
Such a boy in years but such a man in shouldering
responsibilities. I can hardly remember a time
when he has not been his father's most trusted

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 109

helper. He is not very strong looking. I don't think
he really ever recovered from his terrible sick spell,
but his supply of energy seems to be inexhaustible
and though small of stature his muscles are like
iron and there never seems to be a job too big for
him.

Will, too, is on the ditch job. I don't think he will
ever have any executive ability but he keeps his end
up at the regular work and part of the time he has
been doing the cooking at one of the smaller camps.
We happened in one day unexpectedly and found
one of the nicest dinners ready. I could'nt have told
but what I had prepared everything myself.

Even I have been called upon to help with the new
work. At the big camp they have a woman and a
girl doing the cooking but Nels thought they should
have a few lessons from me. I was with them
several days and quite enjoyed it. Think of bread
mixed in a wash tub. The only thing that would
hold enough for such a lot of hungry men.

Grandfather Just is with us again now. He has
been in Montana a good many years but he feels now
that he will need to be where someone of his own can
take care of him. He eats his meals with us but has
a little home of his own fixed up in a part of our tool
house.

Wish us well in our new enterprise and come see
us.

With love,

Emma.

PRESTO.

Presto Idaho Territory,

April 20, 1890.
My dear Father :

T\ 0 YOU note that change of heading in this let-
•■-^ter? Do you know what it means? Wonder of
wonders, we have a post office. Our dear, kind
hearted Uncle Samuel has consented to carry our
mail for us, to bring it to our door twice each week.
It actually seems to us that we are living in the very
heart of civilization. The post office is right here in
our own house, mind you, with Mr. McElroy, who
is here teaching the children, as post master. The
name is one Nels suggested to the Department and
as you know, is Mr. BurrelPs given name, but he
and Nels are such enemies that Nels denies having
any intention of naming the office for him. Be that
as it may, it is a good name and a wonderful conven-
ience to the neighborhood. It is a star route from
Blackfoot.

Another blessing has been bestowed upon us by
our Government. To encourage the growth of tim-
ber on Western prairies, they have passed a law that
by setting out a certain number of shade trees, you

112 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

can acquire an additional hundred and sixty acres,
over and above the homestead. Nels lost no time in
availing himself of this opportunity. It is a lot of
work but the reward is two-fold and I am quite
overjoyed at the prospect of so many trees to beauti-
fy our somewhat barren homestead.

You should certainly be glad to hear of one thing
upon which we agree so heartily for I certainly re-
count enough of our disagreements. Most of our
quarrels, fortunately, are over little things. I think
we have had more difficulty over the sewing on of
buttons than anything in our married lives. Dif-
ferent trouble than you might imagine too. Some
husbands complain because of buttons left off, but
mine always has his trouble with the ones I want
to sew on. If I see a suspender button missing or a
wrist band hanging down, it is my natural impulse
to rush to sew it on. I would gladly take my hands
out of the dough or leave my dinner to get cold while
I relieve him of the annoyance, but just when I think
I am being the most considerate, he scolds me for
bothering, so the missing button ends in a quarrel.
Once when we had jangled for several hours with
such a small starter, Nels said in his most petulant
manner : "I don't see why you want to bother about
such small things.,, In the coolest tone I could com-
mand, I said : "Well, if it is a small thing for me to
bother with don't you think it is a pretty small thing
for you to object to?" He hesitated a minute and
answered very submissively: "Damif I don't be-
lieve you're right."

Another of our pet subjects for argument is floor
scrubbing. Nels is firmly convinced that a floor
never gets dirty enough to need scrubbing, so I
usually do it when he is away from home. When

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 113

he comes back there is perhaps no supper ready, no
cows milked, just a clean floor. Naturally he scolds
me and, being tired and hungry myself, I am very
easily offended so in a very short time I am crying
and feeling that he is a brute to abuse me so. Really
the most serious quarrels have always been because
he thought I was not taking proper care of myself
so I guess they have not been very serious after all.

Our canal building venture has had no unhappy
consequences and they can see the end of it now. It
has been a terrible strain on Nels for it has brought
him into contact with other people of varying opin-
ions. Up to the present he has had the chance to
manage his work just as he saw fit, but with this
he has found it necessary to give and take a good
deal and the nervous strain has made him very hard
to please with home affairs. Still I think it has been
worth the price and the shares he holds in the com-
pany will give us a nice little income for our later
life.

The last winter has been a hard one on the
country. It put a lot of cattlemen out of business.
You see, up to the present, the really big stock men
have made no provision for feeding their cattle in
winter. Of course, the grass is good, wonderfully
good, and by keeping a good force of men on the job,
they could use the desert, the Ft. Hall bottoms, the
foot hills and the mountains as the weather condi-
tions best suited them. In that way they managed
to bring them through without any great loss, but
last winter was so very severe, with all their wonder-
ful variety of range, there was nothing left un-
covered and the cattle died by the thousands. The
owners of them were living in luxury in their east-
ern homes, figuring on the number of steers they

114 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

would have fat for the June market and before word
of the distress could reach them their herds were
reduced pitifully, or in many cases wiped out com-
pletely. This will mark the passing of the cattle
king, and perhaps it will mark the dawn of a new
era, the era of irrigation.

We are all very well now but my little girl is a
constant anxiety. I dread the coming of hot weather
for each summer she has had such terrible bowel
trouble that I've feared that I couldn't pull her
through. Oh, I cannot spare her!

Write to me oftener now that I am so sure of get-
ting your letters without any needless delay.

Love from all
Emma.

COUNTING MY BLESSINGS.

Presto, Idaho.

May 1, 1891.

My dear, dear Father:

f^ AN IT be possible that this is the last time I am
^to write to you! Can it be that after twenty-
four years of cruel separation, we are to be together
again? I am so happy I can hardly settle myself to
write. It seems too good to be true, like I am dream-
ing and will soon find it all a mistake. But here is
your letter stating plainly that your business is sold
and you will be packed by the time you get an ans-
wer. This has been the longest deferred happiness
of my life and many times I have feared that I would
not be here when you came. At the beginning of
each year, though, I have hoped that you would come
back to me before its close ; then, instead of feeling
the disappointment, I have hoped anew for another
year.

Such changes as you will find, father! Changes
in the country and changes in me !

Our Territory has become a State, our wilderness
has become a home, and the Snake River Valley
gives promise of being one of the richest in the

116 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

world. Eagle Rock, that was a bleak stage station
when Fred's father and I cooked there for the stage
company in the early sixties, is a miniature city and
calls itself "Idaho Falls." The ladies who throng
the social gatherings are wont to doubt me when I
boast that one winter I was the only woman who
lived there.

The start of cows that you gave me, in the course
of twenty years has grown into a herd of several
hundred, adding materially to our prosperity.

My own age has more than doubled. You left me
a child and will find me past the prime of life and
the mother of ten children. Oh, there will be a lot
of surprises for you and they will not all be happy
ones I fear. You will not be disappointed in Mels,
I am sure, for you are broad minded enough to see
his goodness in spite of his many petty faults. We
have not lived an ideal life, but looking around me, I
am forced to admit that he is a better husband and
a better father than any I can name. We have ex-
perienced prosperity and adversity, sickness and
health, hope and despair. We have laid to rest four
of our family of ten, but we have met all of it to-
gether and unafraid. And looking back over the
years, I can truthfully say, "Life has been kind to
me." Sometimes I feel that I am the luckiest person
in the world for all my wishes have come true. That
is, they will have come true when I can welcome you,
my father, to the home we have made.

Our home. It is a good substantial, homey home.
The rooms are large and the furniture is large to fit
them, some of it made by the carpenter according
to my orders. We have a new range that seems
very big and clumsy to me, more fit for hotel use,
but it is a wonder from a cook's point of view, so

LETTERS OF LONG AGO 117

I think I will learn to like it. We also have water
piped into the kitchen. Think of the luxury of it!
Your "Em" who used to draw water with an old
well sweep to do washing for the aristocratic
Southerners, has now but to turn a tap and the
water is there.

We keep help in the house all the time now. A
girl who is my helper and my companion as well.
I have made many young friends in this way and
we both have been benefitted. Just now we have a
wonderfully good girl, Crillia Carson, who is a niece
of a girl that Nels wanted to marry before he met
me. She declined, however, but he has told me so
much about her that it is nice to be in touch with
them again. Nels has always been good to get help
for me when our means would permit, and his
mother, who is with us now, says : "He babies Emma
too much." Perhaps it is true, but I feel that I have
done my share of the world's work and if I can teach
others a few of the things I have learned I can con-
sider myself through.

Yes since I wrote last, Grand-father Just died,
just peacefully passed away, and true to her word,
the old lady came to us just as soon as he was gone.
She is a queer little body, but full of good humor and
helpfulness. Insists upon doing for herself in every
way and then knits, knits, knits for everyone for
pastime.

Now, about the family you are soon to meet. Fred
my first born, is a man and my fears that he might
follow his father's footsteps were groundless. He
has led a rough life, working away from home most
of the time since he was twelve, but there have been
happy homecomings for the other children are es-
pecially fond of their big, cow-boy brother.

118 LETTERS OF LONG AGO

Jim is his father's helper. Has been doing a
man's work since he was fourteen and very often,the
work of two or three.

Will is still the peace-maker, so full of wit and
originality. His supply of good humor often turns
a bad situation into a laugh. I don't think we have
any favorites, for each in his own way is best, but
Will is certainly a great joy to us.

Francis and Charlie are still just boys. Dutiful,
loving lads that will soon be taking their places in
the world as their brothers have done.

Then there is the last and least, baby Agnes.
Least in size if not least in importance. Of all my
babies she is the only one that you are to see while
the least semblance of babyhood is still with her.
You asked what you were to bring her from over
the seas. I left it up to her and her decision was
prompt : "A boy doll."

Now, a long good-bye. Good-bye to pen, ink and
paper. I shall be counting the hours until that
"White Star Liner'' brings you safely back to our
own good U. S. A. and to me.

In loving anticipation,

Emma.

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